


A Stranger's Winter

by sunabolitionist



Category: Frankenstein & Related Fandoms, Frankenstein - Mary Shelley, Frankenstein: A New Musical - Baron/Jackson
Genre: Angst, Complicated Relationships, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Illness, Living Together, Loneliness, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-18
Updated: 2021-01-27
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:28:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 31,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23191654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunabolitionist/pseuds/sunabolitionist
Summary: It was forced on Henry but he did not dispute it. He never did, not with Victor. Victor took him to his home in Ingolstadt and immediately fell ill. Henry knows how to do one thing when it comes to Victor, care for him, be kind, be the friend he needs.But there's something terribly wrong.Victor stinks of death. Henry keeps feeling something trailing behind him. Henry tosses himself into Victor's needs without knowing if his work will be reciprocated. There's nothing he wants more than Victor's happiness.The winter will press on. And Henry will try to make Victor well. But there is only so much he can do. There is only so much joy he can give. Will it siphon his own? Can the two of them try to understand each other's needs?
Relationships: Henry Clerval & Victor Frankenstein, Henry Clerval/Victor Frankenstein
Comments: 8
Kudos: 46





	1. for all of his furies

**Author's Note:**

> hi this is based off of the bit from about chapter four or five in the 1818 edition. it basically follows the canon events but adds A Bit More Gay, (mary shelley would've allowed it had it not been 1818 when this bitch was published) please be kind, i know victor is Ambiguous or DownRight Bad... we will get there... i promise... please forgive henry clerval, he is an intelligent dumbass. 
> 
> HERES THE PLAYLIST https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7xbtZzEwquwmzqX2bpBf3Z?si=kFWp-GNMQAWqcAFo1JibRA 
> 
> follow my shitty antics on twitter @sunabolitionist

Though in all respects, his furies were the consequence of his ailment, it struck fear into me. My dear friend, disappearing into the veil of madness, made me question what dark is there in that petrified quiet. I’d seen him flail in lack of thought only once before and I labor not to think of it. Seeing him like this, however, makes it impossible to ignore. He shouted— his body thrashed in terror, hastily pacing back and forth with an uneven gait. He insisted someone was after him. I believed him, but I would not tell him this. His thin legs buckled under him. Lord, he was so thin. I knew what he had been doing: employing himself, at length, with no freedom. Yet, this was the apparent freedom he found. He crumbled beneath his own weight, eyes still slightly open, sweat slick on his forehead. His skin flushed alabaster white and the glow in his skin was gone and had been for some time. It was merely my failure to notice. He was thin, even in adulthood, and I wanted to accredit it to his bones, but his father was not like him. My friend, almost diminutive, but just large enough to lack that classification.  
The remnants of his fear sat on the tip of my tongue with great acerbity. I imagined what his anger would look like in this way, though I had seen it once before, but that time, it was sadness. We were young. Both young men of terrible fears, growing into things we did not want nor understand. We sat on a long blanket outside of the university of Ingolstadt, just before Victor began his lessons there.  
We had our books spread, fighting desperately against the wind to no avail— I wondered if he saw me the way I saw him. Knowing him, he didn’t see anyone the way I saw him. He saw people as uncertain, though, by no choice of his own, he would grow to trust them, maintaining distance but giving just enough comfort to his compatriots as he needed. I didn’t trust it. I didn’t trust him. He continued looking down even when my eyes gathered on his brow, his chin, his jaw. Something was troubling him.  
“Victor?”  
He didn’t quite look up, but something in his face changed a bit.  
“Is something troubling you?” I asked him.  
He sighed for a moment. I imagine I looked anxious and certainly, I imagine he could tell. He watched me. This was something he frequently did, a way of sizing up the person he was preparing to speak to. He explained it to me once; there was only so much he could tell from what someone said, but he had learned (note: learned) that there were things people did not say that told more than what they did. And “honestly, dear Clerval, it is easier that way, it is easier to read, easier to parse. But I can never seem to speak it.”  
He answered: “Yes, Clerval, something is bothering me, friend.”  
“What is it?”  
“I am begging you not to ask that.”  
He closed his book.  
“Then what am I meant to ask?”  
“Nothing! You are meant to ask nothing. It is not your place. You are meant to be the one to raise my spirits, to tell me poems, to make me happy. There’s nothing about my troubles that you need to know. There’s nothing about the way I suffer that concerns you!”  
Something drew me to laugh.  
“If I am meant to make you happy— and I am not meant to know what troubles you, how am I supposed to perform the former?”  
Victor stood. His face was growing red. I gazed upon him even more intently.  
“You are meant to— that is what you are meant for.”  
I laughed. “Meant for? I am meant to live, to enjoy beautiful things. I am not meant to make you happy.”  
He came close to me, grumbling a bit. I began to rise.  
“Yes— Well— fuck— Henry— God—” then he pushed me.  
I resisted, then stepped forward. Then he firmly punched me in the chest. He was angry, but couldn’t follow through, so, in one swift motion, I collected him in my arms. I wanted to laugh. I held him there desperately and he began to shake, and he began to cry.  
He explained it to me. The date of his mother’s death— no matter what month— left him hollow. He knew it wasn’t how it was often remembered, but the sheer reminiscence of the numbers broke him. He sobbed and sobbed. Slowly, we sat back at our books. He wiped his eyes. I didn’t need to forgive him. But now— I wasn’t sure I could forgive him. What he did; forgetting his own needs, choosing this labor over his entire family? This hurt us all. I wanted to forgive him, but I was angry nonetheless. I suppose, then, some things can exist in contradiction.  
I lifted Victor from the floor of the entrance into the bedroom. His body was so light it made my stomach turn— I knew how he felt, the width of his arms, the plumpness leftover in his stomach. I wanted to give him some chance. I laid him down in the bed. A candle flickered haphazardly beside the thick curtains.  
He was still breathing— something of which I constantly wanted assurances.  
I placed my hand upon his forehead. My hand felt strange there, as if I had done something quite wrong. Victor, here you are again, amongst the dust, I thought. Did he remember now telling me of the lightning bolt? Confiding his most fearful curiosities? Did he remember anything now? I needed to call a doctor. Though, without much reason, I felt a stranger’s breath on my neck— by reflex I swung around. There was no one there. Perhaps a wind. 

⟷

The doctor slowly covered his instruments. Victor kept twitching and throwing himself about before the doctor came, and certainly I articulated this. The doctor placed a salve under his nose, waited for a moment, and watched as Victor’s body calmed. I didn’t know what to do. Nowadays, I never know what to do. Victor would want me to be joyous now. Not to concern myself with his ailment. I want to believe that I could— but belief is a weak ache; the pain is elsewhere. My eyes were forced into tears. I attempted to retract them as they came but they fell well into my eyes, forgetting the hope of my previous days.  
The doctor extends a thick, pinkish hand to me. I smile. Yes, there were still tears in my eyes, but I thought not of it. Shaking his hand, the doctor was firm, and I planned to do the same, but could not gather the strength.  
“Take care of him, make sure he is fed, that he drinks. His body is very weak. The exhaustion has affected him deeply. Ensure he gets rest as well, though I doubt he will be able to resist.”  
I nodded.  
The doctor began to leave.  
“Doctor,” I said, attempting to manage a voice that sounded less like a plea. I thought, for a moment, of what I wanted to say. But ultimately, I said nothing. I let him walk out the door without a word.  
I pulled a high backed chair beside Victor. He no longer moved but he breathed slow, deep breaths. His thin stomach rose with each one, and yet, I felt like a fool seeing him like this. He had seen me like this once. I try to avoid that thought. I try to avoid most of my thoughts.  
I stood over him. He had yet to regain color and I assumed it would be some days until then. It bothered me, though, I could smell him. He did not smell as he usually did— of a bit of sweat mixed with his chemical perfume— no, he smelled of death. I leaned close to him, taking a strong whiff of his shirt. That was it: his shirt stank of corpses. It was as if he spent the past month in a morgue without once taking a shower. It should’ve been more noticeable— and immediately I began hating myself for not noticing sooner. When he entered, I should’ve known. I pressed my thumbnail hard into my hand, deeper, and deeper, until blood slipped into the white of my fingernail. I turned from him. I walked to the window.  
I wished to look out, but Victor had barred the windows, placing thick slats of wood before the glass, only enough to let the light through. I hadn’t noticed thanks to the blinds being drawn. Breakfast sat on the table. I had sent Victor’s servant, Robin, off without much thought. I did not want that boy here to see his master like this. I moved my hands over Victor’s slow moving chest. I felt a strange measure of fear as I did, but nonetheless, I unbuttoned his shirt. It was as if I had removed his skin; his bones nearly jutted out of his chest. My tongue became a slate in my mouth.  
Each button was its own desperation. I needn’t do this— but I didn’t know what else to do. His breath did not speed up. He did not flinch. I lifted his body just enough to remove the shirt and his eyes slowly cracked open, just long enough where I knew he could see me.  
“Victor,” I nearly choked up. “I’m here to assist you now. You fell unconscious.”  
He grumbled for a moment. “Where is he?”  
I stared at him. “What?”  
I removed his shirt, facing slight resistance from his half asleep arms.  
“Where is he?”  
His breath began to hasten. “Victor, I sent him off,” I said. He began to look around anxiously. “Victor, I beg of you, lay back down.”  
He continued to twitch, to throw himself about. I held him down, pressing his arms against the bed. “Victor, please.”  
“Henry! He will come for you! You don’t know what he is capable of!”  
He repeated: “He’s coming!” until eventually, his body weakened and he fell back into a deep sleep.  
Anger pulled at me; all I seemed to do was anger him, even as we grew up. He insisted that I made him deeply happy, that I brought him joy, but it was impossible to believe it. Not when he always felt the way he did. He told me he had a happy childhood thanks to me, but I couldn’t carry over that joy into the rest of his life. Somehow, that was my fault. I was certain. That was my fault.  
He laid there, no longer thrashing, but still breathing heavily. My eyes combed over him. I placed a thick coat over him. An urge to run my fingers through his hair struck me— and I would have, had I not been afraid of disturbing him anymore so soon after he fell back asleep. So I sat there. The shirt, though, appeared in my hands again once it returned to focus. I could smell the death on it, but out of some terrible, misplaced hope, I thought it would smell like him. I brought it to my face. It did not. I don’t know what hope is left but that which leads me astray. I am hopeful, now, only for the Victor I knew to return. 

⟷

Days became their own strangers. Something had been bothering me for sometime; an uncomfortable wild pressed against the inside of my chest, clawing almost, clasping at the bones in my ribcage. The feeling was stronger with Victor. My hands have been occupied, swiftly writing letters to Victor’s teachers, but, quickly, it dawned on me, I didn’t know their names. I didn’t know who to contact or what to say. So instead, I worked alongside Robin out of some thin hope I could make a meal, to no avail. Robin laughed at me as I plodded around the kitchen like a fool, hoping somehow that he would save me, or teach me instantaneously how to make a meal.  
My ponderings made me quite a poor steward, but Robin did not seem to care much for that idea. He knew, to some extent, that I was not going to do what he needed of me.  
“You, sir—” Robin said, flipping an egg in a cast iron skillet. “Henry, right? No, no need to answer that, Master Frankenstein speaks of you.” He collects the egg and places it on a plate. “You are a man from a different line than I. We exist in quite different worlds. You were educated.”  
“And?” I grew defensive.  
“That is all, sir.”  
I grumbled a bit as Robin took the plate. Anxiously, I followed behind, wishing to take the plate from him and bring it to Victor myself, but Robin moved quickly. Robin was a short man with curly brown hair, almost tan skin, and a thin frame. He looked like he rarely ate, which is likely true, knowing how irresponsible Victor tends to be. Robin reached the top of the stairs as I arrived closely behind. He lifted his hand over the door cautiously, then began to open it incredibly slowly. The door creaked and the dark seemed to pour out. A sour stench of sweat filled both of our nostrils. Robin did not look back, but I could see him shake his head.  
Robin entered before me but said nothing. I came to his side and gazed upon Victor. I arrived at Victor’s bedside and lit the kerosene lamp. Victor sat slightly upright, arms extended before him in a seeming supplication. He spoke not a word— his eyes were preoccupied by the ceiling, upon which every ounce of his interest seemed to be focused. His eyes bewitched me. They always seemed to. They were sharp with many others, but somehow, he practiced an unseemly kindness with me— as if he knew there was something he could gain. I was certain it was that. I could not convince myself of anything else.  
“Vic—”  
“Master Frankenstein.”  
Robin placed the eggs and bread beside Victor, but the only difference was the hastening of Victor’s breath, the unease growing in his eyes. . His eyes remained fixed on the ceiling. Robin looked at me and without a word he nodded and excused himself.  
“Victor,” my voice croaked.  
The cold feeling continued to wrack the back of my neck, as if there was something foreboding about Victor now, something I had never felt before but now hadn’t the ability to ignore. I didn’t wish to sound pleading.  
“Monsieur Frankenstein? Master Frankenstein?” I teased.  
Uncomfortably, I laughed, “what about this one, I know it is your favorite to hear— Doctor Frankenstein?”  
He looked away from the ceiling, but not to me. Now, I could see the bright red whites of his eyes, the sharp shimmer of tears collecting in the corners. Knowing Victor, he would not want me to console him. He hated it when I did that, but nonetheless, he often wanted and hinted towards it, but only once before, in a moment of great humility, had he asked for it in earnest.  
“Victor,” adopting a more serious tone. “Please eat. Your servant made this meal for you in lieu of my sheer ineptitude. You certainly remember the incident with the veal.”  
Victor continued to look away.  
I laughed. “You know, it’s funny, dear friend. There’s not much chance of me admitting this to anyone else, and frankly, it may be a bit morbid, but you excited me with your madness.”  
Victor then turned to me. His eyes sharpened, carrying a certain cold to them.  
“He is still coming you know.” Victor’s voice shook, strained, and coughed into language.  
“Who, Victor?”  
“It doesn’t matter. We will see. You will see. Most certainly, I will. I have made a grave mistake—” Victor coughed.  
“Victor, let us not worry ourselves with this now. Eat.”  
Victor nodded.  
His thin fingers lifted the thick slice of bread. He chewed slowly, as he always did. “I hate the texture of these things,” he told me once when we were young, “all food disgusts me to some extent. It makes more sense for those of us supposedly in the image of god” he taunted with his hands “to be able to survive without paltry bread and meat.”  
I instructed him as he finished the bread: “The egg too, friend.”  
Victor swallowed, then nodded. He cleared his throat.  
“I apologize, Clerval.” His face seemed to shrink, almost falling into an uncharacteristic meekness.  
“For what, Victor?”  
“For doing what I have done.”  
“What have you done, then, Victor? If it is so terrible it warrants an apology even without my knowledge of the offense?”  
He shook his head. “I cannot tell you. I am afraid to speak it.”  
“Please, Victor.” I plead.  
He turned away, the fork in one hand.  
“It cannot be so terrible.”  
Victor shook his head.  
“No, Clerval, you do not understand. I cannot impress upon you the danger we are in merely by being here. The danger we are in by remaining in Ingolstadt. The danger you are in merely by being here with me.” He snapped, his voice progressively rising in anger. “We must leave, take our things and run somewhere far— perhaps to France— maybe the British Isles. I beg of you,” his voice weakened, followed promptly by a cough. “We must go.”  
“Eat, Victor.”  
He nodded submissively. I handed him the plate and knife. He slowly cut the egg with machine-like motions.  
“Would you like me to read you a poem? One you know?”  
He finished chewing. “Yes, friend. I think—” he paused as if he was choked up. “I think that would bring me joy.”  
“Now, I just need to see if you are truly as well stocked and well read in this home as I remember you being in Geneva.” I laughed.  
He smiled, cutting another piece of the egg.  
I plucked through his books, carefully sliding my finger against the varied spines. He carried many antique books from his father that Alphonse left him in confidence he would read them. Victor did not. But his father needn’t know that much. I found, sitting at the end of the bookshelf, a single book tilted onto the straight boundary. The spine of the book was well worn, the brown leather almost tearing about halfway down the binding. I read, that which I could read, the small bits of text unperturbed by the wear.  
I sat beside him again. His eyes worried me; the longer they lingered the more crazed and uneasy they became. They moved quick when needed, but they didn’t seem to slow. I attempted gentility, prying open the book with the slightest hand, clearing my throat like a regent, and beginning to read. Promptly, Victor stopped me.  
"What are you doing, Clerval?" He looked through me.  
"I'm going to read you a poem, I had said—"  
"Come here." Victor pleaded.  
I did, rising from the seat and standing above him.  
"Give me your hand." He commanded.  
I did, without resistance.  
He pressed his fingers into the top of my hand, as if to feel the spread of my palm without examining it. I wanted him to hold me there without words but he began to speak.  
“Oh, this wound,” he muttered.  
“Yes.”  
He shook his head and continued without thought; "Both of us are men outside of labor, friend." He sighed, "you come here with the intent of studying by my side and this is what I give you— by the single taste of true work, perhaps, true want, I make this world abominable. I think that may be my foolishness."  
Discomfort rose in my chest.  
“But you came here to study, correct? The languages you loved?”  
I nodded.  
“You came here to study?”  
“Victor?” I murmured, concern must’ve bled out of me. “You are repeating yourself.”  
“You came here, and you didn’t know. Of course you didn’t know. There is no way you could’ve known. But it will kill you. I saw it when I slept. I see it when I see you now.” He began to cough in fits, letting go of my hand.  
“Victor, friend, lay down.” I pushed his chest slightly in hope it would ease his coughing.  
His eyes fixed upon something behind me. Again, he began to wail long fitful screams, each with impossible strength as they grew from such a small source.  
“He is coming. You don’t know but he is coming.”  
By now, this no longer fazed me. I stepped back. The horror left my eyes. He screamed and screamed, but I simply left the room with my hands behind my back, the book in my grasp.  
The touch convinced me that Victor was well. His hands were as gentle as I remembered— his body kind as ever, and somehow pliable. He was firm for that moment. But I am easily lied to, especially by him. I am a fool when it comes to him— he has drawn the outline of my wants and I have filled them with him. I think it was all imagined. Victor cried and I wretched at the thought of it continuing. It hurt me, but at this juncture there was nothing to be done. There are no doctors to fix states like this; none that I trust. 

⟷

I surveyed Victor’s apartment further. Robin kept it in order, but there was still that rotting scent that I inquired about, only to find that he was as clueless as I. Victor was terribly secretive, to a fault. He has told me many things in confidence, but these things were not dangerous. Often, they were problems he was already handling, problems with thought, things he felt he lacked certainty on. I want to believe he'd tell me if this mystery— this thing he has done in our time apart. But knowing Victor, he doesn't love me that much. He values his safety, or the appearance of it, above his family. I grew fitful in reply to these thoughts— my whole self felt stitched to the thought of Victor.  
I despise admitting this strange winter I continue to feel in his presence. It continues to bleed contrast: being with him is freezing, yet beautiful, the pure air has no place to go but inside the skin. The snow falls and suddenly it is hard to breathe. Ingolstadt inspires an unfamiliarity in me. Everything foreboding, cold, and foreign, down to the people, breathing short, labored breaths beneath thick coats cut from wool they likely inherited. The buildings oversee it all in frigid, fatal observation. I can’t dissociate it from Victor. I can’t tear Ingolstadt from him. It is his home, but knowing him, he will never admit he considers it such. He is a stranger to everything. He seems to vanish amongst it all. He is a stranger even when he knows you, even when hope for joy takes him over, he maintains a thin sheet of ice between himself and the world.  
“This is not safety,” I told him, years back in M. Franknestein’s home in Geneva. We were both brimming into manhood— and I always wanted to assert it. Victor always wanted to deny it. “It isn’t anything but weakness. You need people, Victor. Men are only as much as their friends.”  
He moved his head from my lap. Just before I spoke, I read him poems, my hand lost in his curled hair, my other hand nursing a book. He turned to me and I looked down at him.  
“But isn’t it safety knowing you will live without pain? This is how I live without pain.”  
“Oh dear friend… That isn’t possible.”  
He glared at me and I promptly wished to retract it. Then, he lifted his head from the mulsin carpet and placed it back in my lap.  
“I do hurt, Clerval.” He sighed, rubbing his eyes. “And I think I will create more.”  
This memory soured in my mouth. The sun taunted me, placating the soft blue of the sky with a softer pink. I could not say why; the sun beat the color out of my eyes once it rose and carried on its tirade until it set. There was a certain relief in the color returning, but it was never kind. As it set, I left the window and sat upon Victor’s couch. My intent, as the hour demanded, was to sleep. But of course, I could not sleep. Victor screamed intermittently through the night. Robin left after cleaning the apartment, nonetheless, the smell of death lingered like a fog, choking out every live thought and thing I could’ve hoped for.  
A long battle with the ceiling culminated in nothing. More and more nothing. Victor screamed every twenty minutes, like clockwork. The clock standing by the door ticked like an iron hand striking a door. Admittedly, as the hours waned, there was more noise I noticed. The floors creaked without prompting. The wind did not breach the window but beat against it. The batter of the wind creaked in time and I could not relax long enough to shut my eyes. A cold, hateful rage struck me. Then Victor would begin to scream and the noise would disappear. Then the silence would be even more loathsome in its absence.  
However, a certain blushing quiet befell me as the sun rose, and regrettably, I slept, barely for ten or fifteen minutes, but once I awoke, something was disrupted. It was difficult to gauge at first, but as I looked, the papers on the kitchen table were disrupted-- the cabinets were swung open-- a closet door was ajar with shoes tossed about the outskirts. It was, as I assumed, as if someone had gone searching for shoes, utensils, and information. Immediately, I darted up to Victor’s room. The door hung open. The sheets on his bed were tossed about, from the chest a pile of clothes was thrown out across the floor. He was gone.


	2. How Cold It Gets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Victor has run off, Henry has no choice but to find him. The world becomes colder than ever.

Snow began to fall. I hadn’t a moment to panic, in truth, my body took off in a fit, attempting to gauge just how much damage would be done were an already ailing Victor to be out in the elements for longer than an hour. I hoped— and this was a hollow hope— that he had taken a coat, that he had taken a bag, a meal, something. But he was a fool when it came to preparation and certainly he would be no better with a mind wracked by fever and a body stolen by weakness.   
I imagined myself tracing his steps. The snow had just begun to fall. He left no trail, no breadcrumbs, no shirts torn along the way. I wondered, though, if I could trace him by smell, but laughed, morbidly, because I am not a goddamn dog— but my mind was desperate, I wanted something to give me even an inkling of a chance. I knew his intent. Victor wanted to leave Ingolstadt. Victor wanted to run from whatever was chasing him. If only he had told me, I thought. If only he had trusted me.   
My coat grew damp with snow. I peered around corners, alleyways, into the windows of shops, all out of a misplaced hope he would be inside, or that he would be lying there. I understood there was one place he would likely go. Victor, by request of his father, had enough money to get back to Geneva. I knew this solely because I was present when he was told, but it was meant to be for emergency, if someone in the family were to fall ill, or if Victor himself were to fall ill. Well, I suppose that is this instance. But where exactly he would head is uncertain: he would likely take a boat, something— I wasn’t sure where he was headed, but there were only so many places.   
My hopes were placed on the docks. My feet beat the ground and every step was a flood of motion. I had no choice but to run. The only thing I knew with certainty is that if he was not there, if he was not at the docks, I didn’t know where else he would be. I wouldn’t know what else to do. Snow gathered on my shoes, splashed slush as I moved quickly with great want. My lungs began to burn in a tense rebellion and yet somehow the pain propelled me, my body impossibly active.   
It is a terrible thought. I have never cared about Victor more. I do not know what it is about pain that gives it the longings of love. I do not know what it is about pain that tricks us into thinking it has that character, that it can be anything other than the ache of loss, that it can exist in anything other than torn dismay. The snow began to make my fingers grow blue. The wind picked up. Every motion began to hurt and yet I carried on in terrible hope. Consistently, a rattle of voices told me that there was no point in being hopeful. My own thoughts insisted that there was no chance of anything getting repaired: that even if I found Victor, he’d be dead by now.   
I cursed myself for being less than enough of a friend to him.   
“Victor!” I yelled in an opening populated by a few men with their backs turned. “Victor?”   
I had stopped for just long enough to feel the cold of my hands turn into a sharp pain. I hadn’t worn gloves. Elizabeth would’ve scolded me for that, and I would’ve had no choice but to admit she was right. My feet ached, hanging on my legs like lead weights. I wanted to move but my body fought back. I did it anyway. I did so many things for Victor.   
I didn’t need to make it to the docks. The water was cold but not yet frozen. Winter was still young, so this early snow was merely a slight from God. The snow began to gather and I had only been out for moments. No longer did it merely dust the ground, it began to cover stones, blanket the grass, grow heavy on roofs. But that wasn’t enough to terrify me. Rather, it was the bag on the ground; a familiar bag half covered in snow. I wiped away much of it from the top, and found a monogrammed lettering. V.F.   
And death would’ve felt the same as that sight.   
It is one thing to be alive, it is another to be in peril, and yet, they feel like weighted poles tugging at an ever shrinking center. I followed in the direction that the bag pointed. The urge to beg swelled in my chest. Perhaps if I bowed down to some higher power unlike I had ever done before I would be safe, I would be able to get Victor back alive. The snow fell harder and harder. Running felt impossible but impossibilities are nothing in the face of terrible fear.   
“Victor?!” I pleaded. “Please… Victor.” I heaved as my pace slowed.   
Then, I looked about. And finally, there he was.   
He sat on a bench, though, perhaps sat is not the right word. The top half of his body was limply tossed to the side, his legs disrupted and slightly spread, and— oh God— his face was terribly blue. I came close to him only to realize his eyes were almost swollen shut. I lifted him onto my shoulders.   
My whole body was lifted into rage. With every fibre in my being I wanted to hurt Victor, but I knew that he was already hurt enough, that there was enough pain in his body to give him a lifetime’s worth of suffering. But I wanted it to be from me. I wanted him to know that he hurt me. But that was selfish; I knew it. Hope left me like heat.   
All of my realizations in these moments were painful. Victor did not weigh much which was both convenient and damning. He would likely die were I to slow down. I was not as weak as I imagined which was convenient, but also not enough. The snow burnt as it struck my face. It dawned on me that there was no chance I could give him enough care at his apartment. So I ran to the hospital, shifting Victor’s position from my shoulder into my arms like a small child. His eyes were moving and I felt him tremble as we moved forward.   
But by some sort of curse, my legs began to give out. I couldn’t keep pace. Now, I stood in the middle of Ingolstadt. Citizens were beginning to wake up. I looked around, men and women started to leave their homes, and suddenly, I realized I was screaming.   
“Help! Please, I beg of you!”   
An older woman approached, holding out her hands to me.   
“Come in, sir, come in.”   
Then, in a blistering second, I fell unconscious.   
⟷

A small white room. Whatever skills of discernment I had leftover were gone, turned upside down in the cold. I was looking and yet not looking. Blind and able to see at the same time. A shudder writhed down my spine. I could not move and motion felt necessary, like my body knew something was coming. Like there was no chance that any of this would turn out well. I tried to press my thumbnail into the reaches of my palm but had no control over my hands. Motion failed me again. I tried to close my gaping mouth to no avail. I laid there paralyzed. Then, I heard a hoarse, terrible voice, growling like a dog with a broken larynx. I wanted to look around but could not.   
In a brief, sharp moment, I knew something I should not have known. The figure now stood immediately above me, looking down with yellow, swollen eyes and taut skin, unmoving with every cold, stable glance. I imagined death to look like whatever this was. Then, invariably, I heard Victor’s voice.   
“No! Please!”   
In an instant, darkness bathed the room. I laid there in that impossible dark for a moment before a small light became overbearing in the small slit of my frozen eyes. I tried to open them. Slowly, motion came to me. Then, it came in floods. My whole body riled up into action, my arms turned into flailing masses, violence felt impossibly easy. I wanted to grab onto something— someone. At least for some sort of safety. I wanted to breathe warm air. I wanted soup, a kiss, a drink of water. I wanted Victor.  
Along the way, I realized and could not stop realizing. Sweat berated my palms and ease of motion was replaced with pain. I recalled it all. Victor laid on that bench. Victor nearly died— unless, Victor had died. And I had failed. I couldn’t gather the energy to cry, but could gather the energy to scream.   
I couldn’t recall where I was. I couldn’t recall what city I was in, what country. I wanted to find him, desperately, but could not rise. I threw my hands about. Finally, someone held me down. Someone looked at me from above— and I knew this feeling from the dream, but it was not that thing. Rather, the elderly woman looked down at me, staring with dismay. It was not her alone though; there was a man who I could not see, but could hear instructing another person. Now I presumed many things, most of which were attempts to recall exactly what occurred that morning— had it been morning?   
“Sir,” she pleaded. “Please stay still. You are not well.”   
I eased. “Where is Victor?”   
She nodded, perhaps to the other men. “The man you brought?”   
“I brought?”   
“Yes. You came a few moments after dawn that day with a man in your arms. Quite a small man. We are taking care of him now. He will be safe with us. What is your name, sir?”   
“Henry Clerval.”   
“Well, M. Clerval,” she patted my shoulder. “It is in your best interest to stay still. You will need rest for at least another day. Your friend, however, is up and walking. He is so thin, though, when you are well, he will need more tending than you.” She paused. “And…”   
“Ma’am, his mind is—”   
“Yes.” She sighed. “You know. Good. Luckily when you are well you may—”   
“I have been tending to that, ma’am. His health is in my hands.”   
She nodded. “The two men here are my sons. They helped you into bed. They will ensure Victor remains in the house.” She grumbled for a moment in consideration. “But, M. Clerval— could you please inform me what caused his madness? He is paranoid, looking out the windows, and insists upon leaving—”   
“Ma’am,” I realized something, “how long have I been here?”   
“About three days.”   
I laughed. I failed Victor. Couldn’t bring myself to wake up even in time to see him well. But surely, he was not well. Surely, I was not well. But did it matter? I was meant to be the one taking care of him. I was meant to— then Victor said something.   
“Madame Meyer,” he said. His voice sounded stronger than mine. “I want to speak to my friend.”   
I wanted to sit up— I wanted to see him.   
Madame Meyer moved from me and her sons seemed to be far off. As Victor approached, I realized the smell of death had left him. He smelled like himself and perhaps a bit of lavender. I wondered if they put him in new clothes. I wondered obvious things; things I had hoped would happen that had already been confirmed, things that I knew they would have done and needn’t question, things Victor would’ve made sure of himself. But they all felt novel, like they were things that were so pressing and necessary that I could not avoid them.   
The room swiftly emptied. I heard Victor’s light footsteps approaching. I felt my body grow warm, then, in a brief, burst of a moment, he laid his hand on my forehead. His hand was uncharacteristically warm but his otherwise bony fingers felt soft against my skin. Then slowly, he ran his fingers up into my hair, holding them there for a moment, and tousseling about in it. The warmth spread; a strange peace befell me once again.   
“Dear friend,” he mumbled, “I missed you dearly.”   
I laughed. “Oh Victor— Has it been so long that I have made you sentimental?” I wanted to sound strong, but my voice faltered in an instant. I surely sounded like tears were rife in my voice.   
“It has.” He seemed so steady— something I hadn’t heard from him in some time, but nonetheless it made me feel at peace, like he knew more than I could realize. But it was then— no— it was an inkling— my mouth felt dry in the realization: I think it was something far deeper than friendship. Rather, a great warmth, a motion in surety, walking along a solid path with no chance of falling. It was a motion in gentility where every hand was gentle, the palms facing upwards in receipt, the light spilling into dark. I don’t want to admit it; but I know it. It is knowledge of the devil. It is an incurable ailment.   
“Victor—” I mumbled, however, my body weakened and my mouth fell slack. I couldn’t finish my words.   
“Oh, Clerval, please- Go back to sleep. This wakefulness will only damage you furth—” then he began to cough fitfully. I wanted to exempt him from illness. But the demons of the earth have their own makings and makers, they appear and disappear in the wind, but never leave us.   
⟷

I do not know how it was that I missed him even when we spent three days by each other’s side. Three strange days. He looked at me every few moments with an unbecoming terror, blistering and yet somehow it would dissipate. His eyes would soften. He would look to me and I to him. There was a calm moment between us each time. But yet, there was a meandering cold— not merely between us but between the world and us. The way winter exists is not solely in the weather; there are winters beyond the break of snow, there are winters in the summer, spring, autumn, but the winter is distance. The winter is the feeling you must touch, but being too tightly bundled to feel skin. It is protection with a sense of continued nakedness.   
He sat next to me by the fire of Madame Meyer’s home. She went out often in the middle of the day, as many women of her stature do, to purchase foodstuffs, to collect the last things she may need to finish a project or work. This left Victor and I with much time to exist— well, not comfortably— we were both still very ill. Victor frequently fluttered between surety and fear. More than his eyes, his body would shudder at certain triggers, his fingers would retract into fists. Once, on the second day of our shared infirm, he grew terribly angry with me. Though, I do not know if it was with me. It was at something. It carried no direction towards anything I could see. It was merely rage.   
As for me, well, I have been angry. I have been very angry. I did not tell Victor. I did not take it out on him. I did not make a fuss or a fight. I held it in my hands like a blade with no handle. I held it in my hands and I treated it like a son. I think it was easy for me to note how things can begin and end in one motion, or, at least I could imagine that. I could imagine telling Victor how utterly stupid he was, how much he hurt me, that he should never speak to me again— but of course, I wouldn’t. I never would.   
I existed in tempramental hypotheticals, as I often did, as I seemingly chose to do. I don’t know at what point I am choosing to be angry with him, or at what point I am choosing to hang onto that anger. The illness almost made it disappear in its most fitful moments. My rage was quelled by fever. But I quelled Victor’s rage. He did not bother to reciprocate my care.   
“Henry,” he mumbled, “why did you do it?”   
“Do what, friend?” I said, stifling a sharper tone.   
“You didn’t let me die. You saw me when I had made a mistake and…” He rubbed his eyes with both hands, leaning forward in his seat. “You didn’t let me die.”   
“Why would I.” I said firmly, without lifting for the question.   
“Well,” he looked down as he sat up again, “you shouldn’t have. I would’ve made it. I knew you wouldn’t let me leave- you didn’t understand the severity of the situation. But now we will both die. There’s nothing I can do about your mistake.”   
I looked at him, but he did not look at me. He did not look at me and I could think nothing of him but his cowardice. My hands had their own agenda, but I ignored it and opted for language. Language, of course, I always opted for language, made my way through the world speaking myself out of death. I kept my eyes fixed on him for a moment, then I began to speak.   
“Victor,” I felt rage burst into my throat like bile. “Do you understand how ill you are? Do you understand how close to dying you already were? It was pure luck that I found you. I don’t know what I would’ve done had you not been— Victor— you are such a damned fool! You spend these days treating me like a friend, but not doing at least what I do for you— I needed you— especially now— but of course, I can’t expect that from you. How could I. You’re—” I began to laugh, “you’re not in your own mind anymore, are you? You are not the man I knew.”   
Victor looked at me in the eyes for the first time in some time. I felt my fingers get cold, my face freeze, and my whole body shrank in guilt.  
“I—” Victor stumbled, “I care about you, but I want you to know you were wrong.”   
I groaned.   
“Well, you were.”   
I wanted to hurt him.   
“But I will try to help take care of you— I promise— to the best of my ability. You are my dearest friend. I think I may—”   
I stopped in my tracks. “What, Victor?”   
“I want you to know I will do my best. I will not run off. I promise.”   
“I will trust your word.” I said. “But I will have you know,” I began to stand, “there is absolutely nothing I could’ve done about what you did that would have made you happy. So be happy, at least, that you are not dead. That I did not take too long. That I—” I quickly realized what I was doing, and as I did, a sharp pain burst into my temples. My vision began to blur. In an instant, I was on the ground, still able to discern the sounds around me, the uncertain steps of Victor, the plodding motions of Madame Meyers.   
Her two sons lifted me to the bed once again. Later on, Madame Meyers disappeared into the upper floors. Victor was beside me. I knew this only by the scent of him; he smelled sour, like he had fallen into a vat of lemon juice. Slowly, my eyes opened to Victor placing a cloth on my head. He looked down at me with a strange malice in his eyes. He put one hand on mine. My thoughts were barely lucid, but I could feel Victor come to my ear and whisper:   
“We need to leave, Clerval,” he said it with hot urgency, “we need to be out of here by sunrise, Madame Meyer is the— the thing I created. Madame Meyer is a beast who should not exist.”   
I didn’t understand him at all. I tried to process his words but couldn’t manage it. In an instant, he was no longer at my side. He was thrashing at the window, battling out of some misplaced hope it would lend him an escape. Madame Meyers’ sons rushed up into the room, they held him down, and slowly, Victor was silent. Everything was silent. 

⟷

It took two weeks before either of us were well enough to return to Victor’s apartment. Somehow, I think Victor presumed I would be healthier than him and as the days pressed on, it became unavoidable: he was unwell in ways rest could not fix. But I knew this. I knew it and avoided it like death. All thought was pushed through that matrix. I wanted to believe that I could understand Victor now, as I had before, but it wasn’t an utter shift. Rather, it was that Victor promptly became someone I could only recognize tangentially, through his face, through his mannerism, but there was something there— or, missing, rather— that made the whole image falter. Something hurt him— scarred him— but he would not tell me what it was, nor would he let me attempt to make it better. Though, I do not know if I could.   
Victor and I left in the same clothes we arrived wearing. Though now, they were dry, clean, mine without the few tears and cuts I gained from straining my arms to lift Victor, his were the same, but now they fit him a bit tighter. As we left, I couldn’t help but look to Victor as we walked from the middle of Ingolstadt to his apartment. His face was warm, full, like it had known something other than death. His wellness was a taunt. I knew, to some extent, that once I grew comfortable with it, I would have it snatched away. But of course, I trusted it. I wanted to be with him as he was before. No one tends to remind me of my own health more than Victor. His wellness always seems to be teetering, even though he is rarely utterly sick like his younger brother. I think M. Frankenstein had a bad lot, striking his sons with generational ailment.   
We arrived at Victor's home after a moment’s walk. Robin was nowhere to be found, but there was a pile of letters on the counter where Victor had left a smattering of papers. Victor turned to me with pleading eyes.   
“Clerval, friend,” he paused, “I don’t know if I can handle this now.”   
I nodded. “I can,” I coughed, “take care of it for now.”   
“Thank you,” he mumbled. “Do you see that?”   
“See what, Victor?”   
He pointed to the wall. “That.”   
I sighed. “Come, Victor. It’s fine. I’ll take you up. It won’t hurt you.”   
He blinked at me for a moment. “Okay.” He whimpered.   
I sat Victor down in his bedroom. He tucked himself into the bed and pressed the base of his palms into his eyes, letting out a weak groan.   
“Would you like me to turn out the light?”   
He removed his hands. “Please.”   
The windows were still shuttered. Dark filled the room in an instant. I stepped out.   
I sat at the table with Victor’s letters. There were an assortment of them; most were from his father, some were from Elizabeth, many, however, were from a M. Waldman and M. Krempe, most of which I promptly ignored for the sake of my own health. I needn’t know of Victor’s happenings in such detail, rather, I need to tend to what matters. Though, he did not ask me to tend to anything. He told me that he simply could not handle it right now. This did not mean it was my duty to reply. Really, it meant nothing that I could extrapolate. But I did it anyway, I think, because I was overcome with some strange affection for Victor, that it was my work to assist him now.   
And in that way, I am a fool. I told him I needed his help as much as he needed mine, and nonetheless I felt beholden to him. I wanted to do everything for him while he would do nothing for me. That was merely our relationship, I suppose. That was merely how we moved through the world. I undid the seal on the first letter. Elizabeth sent this letter.   
Elizabeth’s handwriting was as consistent as ever, long, curled strokes, delicately pulling the words across the page like a painting. She wrote to Victor with a pressing urgency.   
“Dearest Victor, 

I haven’t much time, but it has been some months since you have last written. It pains me to wonder what you may be doing, what pain you may be going through. You were often susceptible to pain, especially of your own doing. I know you well, Victor. I know that you are attempting your studies, and you must be doing so with great ferocity. I know many things about you, but as of late, through distance, I do not feel I know you any longer. What kind of man are you, then? I thought you were not the sort to move through the world ignoring me; clearly, I was incorrect. I presume there was some ailment, some great travail, but I cannot know that unless you reply. I know you receive these letters Victor. Father pays for your apartment. You haven’t moved. I know you are there, and Victor, I love you dearly, so please, I beg, do not ignore me. I need someone to write to— someone who is not a stone.

Your Dearest,   
Elizabeth Lavenza” 

I sighed, hanging my head in my hands upon reading. He continues making the same mistakes. I wanted to think he did this out of some slip of mind, but history continued to prove me wrong. Surely, there were other friends as we grew up. Girls, boys, playmates of all sorts. Kids who would come in and enjoy our company— but as we grew older, Victor became sharp, he would grow in friendship with them, profess an undying loyalty, then toss it to the side. He did this with a few of them, often without thought or remorse. None of them survived his indiscriminate dislike of commitment. I guess this is who Victor is. But— and this strikes me most— this is Elizabeth. This is his dearest. And yet.   
I scanned his apartment looking, foolishly, for some sort of clue or hint as to why Victor was like this. Of course, I would never find it. Unless I dug into Victor’s heart and roosted there for some time, I wouldn’t find it anywhere else, even then, I am sure it would be behind lock and key, carried tightly in the fist of some sort of demon. I pushed the letter out of my way. Laying my head on the table, I felt heat grow in my forehead. I didn’t have much time. I stood to collect a sheet of paper, a pen, my thoughts. I did so successfully with all but the last. I sat again, battling the growing fever. It was a desperate attempt to stay coherent, but I managed.   
My hands felt weak as I wrote to Elizabeth. I do not know how I did it so often, how I pressed through terrible colds for Victor, how I made my body stay together for Victor, how I held my head high through fever for Victor, how I did all of this— all without dying— all without reward. I want to say blessing. I want to. But I think the truth may be different. Far less benign. I think it may be my own foolishness. But I don’t think I despise it; I think it keeps me well.   
The letter consisted of no minced words. I made sense of what I wanted to say with ease, but could not determine how much of Victor’s illness I wanted to elucidate. It was terrible, yes, but it was something she should know. I labored through the telling, but eventually, I arrived at a compromise. I decided, carefully, that I would tell her he was ill— no more, no less. I would tell her that it would be handled, that no one from the family should worry themselves as I was working to handle it. I told her this with shaking hands. Surely, she would notice the wavering in my handwriting. She’d notice the way my words started to lose their compunction by the midpoint. There was no surety in them anymore. I felt terribly foolish. I signed the letter, “Your friend, Henry Clerval.”   
Everything felt hollow as I stood from the table, folding the paper and stowing it into one of Victor’s envelopes, neglecting to seal it shut. I left it, imagining it disappearing. Imagining different days, warmer days. Frankly, something compelled me to visit Victor; not to speak with him, but to sit at his side, with my hands open, my eyes fixed upon him. There was a mystical weariness always present in my thoughts of him. It bewitched me but could not give me life. I took a lamp. I took my shame. One in one hand, the next encompassing the other. I walked up the stairs and cringed at every wayward creak.   
I pressed my hand against the door for a moment before opening it. Victor told me many times just how stubborn I am. In one of our moments at Alphonse’s home, we sat there, intertwined, waiting for the other to say something. I asked Victor, for the sake of asking; “who would you want to fall in love with?” This time, I was in his lap, his hand scratching the hair just above the nape of my neck. He looked down at me with a stranger’s eyes, an iota of sweat sliding from his forehead into his brow. I wondered what he thought. I still wonder. In fact, I am always wondering, always attempting to understand where his mind travels when he looks at me; he seems to disappear like a ghost, vanishing beneath the sweet cold of it all. I wish and wish for something to understand him by— even then, I knew I would likely never find it.   
He blinked. “I don’t know, Henry.”   
It was that strange deviance, calling me by my first name that struck me.   
“But I’d want them to be kind. I’d want them to be smart, knowledgeable. A friend.” He laughed. “I guess, someone like you,” he paused, my heart dropping into my stomach, “or Elizabeth.”  
And of course, I laughed. Like a fool. I felt my body grow cold in an instant, but I smiled, and I felt him there, and I felt it all become and unbecome— all this time appearing and disappearing in a sweet breeze.   
I sat down beside Victor in the high backed chair again, setting the lamp on his bedside. The light wearily covered a small portion of our dwelling. I saw his eyes move, then his focus narrowed on me.   
I have no way of explaining this except that something came over me; it was either to tell Victor I forgive him, or to tell him I was sorry— I could not dissect the two in my thoughts at all, I could not split the want to be honest and the want to tell him that I was tied into him. I pressed my thumbnail hard into the top of my hand again, into the same spot and surely, blood arrived again. He watched me do it.   
“Henry,” he murmured. “Stop that, you will mar your skin.”   
I nodded. “I am sorry, Victor.”   
Even that felt like an accident. It felt like those words fell out of my lips without thought or consideration, were merely nothing in one instant and everything in the next— it was a flood of feeling— every small breeze brushed against my spine like a hand. And yet, I felt inexplicably fearful. Still, that feeling of someone behind me was there. I do not know why it came now— why Victor alone, laying there, weak, was enough to spawn this feeling. But I held my tongue for a moment, letting the paranoia wash over me.   
He looked at me solemnly. “I don’t know what is wrong with me, Henry.”   
He kept calling me Henry. I don’t know what spurred it, but it warmed my chest.   
“What do you mean, friend?”   
“I mean— I have made this mistake and I know what I must do, but I can’t give myself enough room to get better. This rage— this disdain for what I’ve done keeps striking me down. I know I haven’t much choice. I know the directions have been chosen for me. But I can’t accept it, Henry.”   
“Is that why you ran? To do what you believe you need to do?”   
“Yes,” he coughed.   
“Well,” I grew deathly serious, “I forgive you.”   
He turned from me. He shook his head. “Henry,” he paused.   
“I forgive you also.”   
I laughed immediately. I couldn’t help it. The fever was striking me harder and harder and Victor’s voice echoed in my head for moments after. My whole body ached. I stood to my feet, still laughing. Victor laughed weakly in reply. I imagine he was confused. I imagine he didn’t know what to do. I stepped outside. I walked for a moment. Then, I realized my eyes had already begun to water. The breath in my chest was gone in an instant. My knees buckled and I fell to the ground. In an instant, I was heaving there, sobbing like a fool. I knew he could hear me. And I forgave him. I was a fool and of course, of course, I forgave him.


	3. All delirium feels the same

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After Henry's episode, Victor consoles him. Their world is different now: Henry is steadily losing his stability while Victor can't take care of himself. And yet, there's a strange feeling under their skins, pulling them closer, and also pulling them apart.

“Language is fallible.” Victor murmurs to me, his hand gently caressing my forehead then fumbling around in my hair. He only said this, as he had other times, when I was preparing to say something and he knew he had no interest in hearing. But like a fool, I went ahead and said it anyway.  
“How did I get here?”  
“Henry,” his voice was wistful and labored. “You started to cry when you left my room, and at some point after the heaving, I heard a thud. I may feel atrocious but— friend… I won’t just leave you unconscious on the ground. I,” he paused for an inordinate amount of time.  
“You can say you care about me.”  
He nodded, “yes, I care about you too much.”  
“Are you hopeful, Victor?” I rubbed my eyes.  
“About what?”  
“This arrangement. This time we’ve spent here. All we’ve done is trade off ailments. At first it was you, then it was me, then it was the both of us. And here we are, like ourselves when we were younger, all intertwined without a hope for finding a true happiness. I know who you are, Victor. This won’t work.”  
“What won’t work, Henry?”  
I grumbled. I knew what I meant. I knew that it wouldn’t work for us to be this close to— oh. I don’t know how to say this still. I think it may be that I have been tied to Victor and don’t particularly wish to be cut free. It may be, but I am the only proof. And certainly, if I am anything, it is unreliable.  
“This arrangement. You never really… well.” I stumbled over my words and recollected myself. “Are you hopeful, Victor? That this will not kill us? That we are not consuming each other whole? Because the way I see it, Victor, we haven’t a chance.”  
A shiver wrested my spine, sending the entirety of my body into an unfamiliar state. Suddenly, I did not know myself. There was a gavel in someone else’s hand hanging just above my head. It was waiting to fall. I was waiting for something to kill me.  
“I think we have a chance, Henry. But—” he shook his head. “That is only for now. Now is an oasis. I have…” he struggled to find the next word. “I have made a large mistake, as I have told you scantly. But this has tasked me with something I cannot do by your side. I wish I could, but there is no way around this— it would likely kill you, endangering you— I could not do that to our family. I could not do that to you.”  
His thumb traced up and down my cheek. Being there felt easy, and yet, I was unable to figure out how to make this feeling go away. Death felt terribly imminent. But I knew two things for certain: I could not tell Victor this, and that were I to, it would disrupt everything we had briefly built. Though— I hear this, and I laugh. I don’t know where my mind is: built, feels like a misnomer. Rather, everything Victor and I had briefly been left with.  
“And yet you sit here with me.” My voice shook. “Why do you sit here with me, Victor?”  
I do not know what I wanted him to say. I do not know what I expected. And yet, I was almost certain I would be disappointed. My hands began to stew with sweat.  
“Because you are my dearest.” His hand steadied on my cheek.  
My throat closed, and though I wanted to speak, I couldn’t.  
“Now, come along, Henry. We should eat.”  
“Is Robin here?” I murmured as my throat slowly opened again.  
I knew not how to place my image of Victor. My heart fell from my chest to my feet, more pronouncedly so when I attempted to stand, berated with both a sudden lightheadedness and a feeling that I had just been tossed into an emotional tempest. Then, Victor took my hand.  
“He will be here shortly— I told him to solicit a butcher for some meat and to secure some bread. But he was not here last night, as I’m sure you knew. He didn’t see us here. He merely saw you on the couch. I presume he thought you were simply tired. I rose and asked him to procure the meal, to his surprise. He didn’t ask any questions about where we had been. He is a good man.”  
All of this— it limited my ability to understand Victor. His hand wrapped around mine did not quite feel like him holding it, rather, as if he was claiming me, holding me in place. But slowly, as I came to realize it more and more, I moved my hand in his, interlocking my fingers with his, and he let me. Then, we came to the table and he gently undid our fingers— however, he held his other hand over mine for a moment, and I watched him in bewilderment as he stroked the back of my hand for a moment and smiled. There, in that instant, I knew I no longer knew Victor Frankenstein. But somehow, I thought it satisfactory. It was a fair exchange.  
He finally let go of my hand. He laughed.  
“Why are you—”  
“Oh, because.” He slyly interrupted.  
I decided against interrogating further. I sat at the table with him. Victor kept looking out to the door. Then, eventually, Robin arrived. He came carrying two loaves of bread and a wrapped parcel of meat. For the first time, I saw a lightness in him. I don’t know what caused it, but something told me it had nothing to do with us, and was none of our concern. Robin left the meat and bread, then, suddenly, asked Victor to be excused. Victor, knowing that he didn’t particularly want someone else around, I suppose, allowed it.  
And yet, there was something wrong. As Robin left, I saw him grow. I saw his body move from a man into a beast. Nothing could’ve prepared me for it, but there it was, the metamorphosis struck me like a ghost. My face flushed.  
“Henry? Are you well?”  
I nodded. “Yes, Victor,” I choked on my words. “As well as can be expected. I haven’t yet succumbed to fever, but there is something here making me feel unwell. What of yourself, Victor?”  
“I am,” he paused. “anxious. But there isn’t much that can be done for that.”  
I wanted to touch him— and through some uncalled for mistake, I attempted it. But— and I did not expect this in the slightest— he pulled away quickly. And somehow, in acting like he did not know me, I knew him. He was someone I recognized— half cold, barely able to express. The Victor that held my hand disappeared in the breath of an instant. I knew it would happen. But I wasn’t sure what happened in his eyes. He was immediately distant. It was what I deserved, I supposed. For being too sure of him. For expecting him to be a person that did not exist. Certain stages in imagination begin to tear into the fabric of expectation; Victor tapped his foot for a moment.  
“Are you going to eat?” I asked him, removing the loaf of bread from the bag and unwrapping the cured meats.  
He did not reply. Instead, he stood to his feet and walked to the window. He stood there, tapping his foot. I stood to retrieve plates for the both of us. As I grabbed them, I called him.  
“Victor, please, we both are barely well, we need to eat.”  
He turned to me, nodded, then returned to the table. Victor seemed more like a petulant child than a man in these moments. As we ate, he was distracted, bleary-eyed and looking off into the distance in some tired hope he’d find, I assumed, his mistake. I was almost angry, but I promptly sacrificed that emotion. I felt it fester, not disappear.  
We ate, and throughout it all, I wondered— have I really forgiven him? I couldn’t tell anymore. It was that brief moment of levity, the feeling of his hand in mine, him letting me intertwine them further, him touching me like when we were young, it gave me a comfort that I am beginning to realize had no basis in reality. It was simply a mistake. There were mistakes I knew of, and there were mistakes I did not. Nonetheless, both seemed to rule me unceremoniously. I left my hand on my thigh, squeezing tight with my thumb and forefinger as some sort of broken reminder that I was there, that I was somehow present in a way that at least existed tangentially. I wanted to believe Victor Frankenstein was no stranger to me. But I could not convince myself. 

⟷

I could not riddle you the content of those past days. I knew only as much as the moments outside of delirium could allow. Scant moments where I knew who I was, where I was, why Victor was shouting. Only for a moment. But as these following days approached and I regained my bearings, I realized Victor did not understand, nor did he attempt to.  
I stood beside his bed while he laid there with a towel on his head, and I asked him,  
“Victor, do you know the day?” He looked at me blankly for a moment.  
“I do not.”  
I assumed he thought I was asking for his sake, that I wanted to ensure he was still cogent and understanding the world around him— but it was for my sake. The days bled through each other. I laughed with a growing tension.  
“Ah well, it should not matter.”  
“I wish I knew it, friend.” he sighed, his body looked thinner, bones more pronounced under the skin. “It would have made my life far easier— my days less enigmatic. I assumed you knew, as to spare you from my fate. But I suppose.” He coughed, “I am contagious.”  
⟷

What was it, this collapse of body… I sat on the floor of the small chamber for what felt like three days, impossibly battling the same image of a man— or not a man— the image of a body— or not a body— something half alive and half dead. The cold awareness of it made me grow mad. I knew there were no insects under my skin, but the feeling was pervasive. It is luck I did not run from the top of that building into the streets of Ingolstadt. It is luck my hands are incapable of crushing my own skull in their breadth. I imagined death. I imagined hands wrapping around my throat and crushing me there. It was the beast’s hands. I had seen it before, just barely between reality and the contrary, but could not verify it. Now, though I was growing unhinged, I thought it real. I thought it impossibly real.  
Nonetheless, a voice rose in my throat. I do not know whose voice it was. My body was sprawled, legs uncomfortably positioned under my rear, everything else in pleading supplication. I wanted to beg for my life. But there was that voice— ever pervasive, growing even more animated whilst the rest of my body sat static in begging. There it came. Little bird, tested window of a soon to be dead thing, then it went out, I presumed it to be crushed.  
“Victor?” It said. “Victor?”  
No response. An arctic silence.  
The beast came close to me, holding my face— no, it was practically my entire head, in the space of one palm. However, for a moment, his hand was gently caressing my forehead, then fumbling in my hair. It looked down at me as if to indicate it knew my desperation. Its mouth opened but before I could tell what laid inside, there was a sweet smell of plums— no— of grapes— lilting over my nose. I imagined dying there. I also knew I would not have to imagine this any longer.  
The sound of wood striking flesh rang in my ears— along with pain— strange, unplaceable pain. From a body that was barely mine. I did not know who was hurting me— but it was not the figure. It was something from behind me. A hand fell onto my shoulder.  
“Henry?” A voice murmured.  
I was still immobile. Dread gripped me— a harsh sound rang in my ears. A voice like a tinny rasp just barely organic entered. It said nothing, but it tried to speak— the monster was fading into nothing. I did not know what was true. A hand on my shoulder squeezed hard. Then— a hand finally pulled my face towards its body.  
“Henry, you must get up. It is time to eat. There is wine. It is getting late, anyways. We should drink.”  
My body was frozen in place nonetheless.  
“Henry?”  
It was Victor. Oh lord. It was Victor.  
Suddenly, I broke from my stupor. I looked him in his eyes. My skin crawled for a moment but instinctively, I embraced him. I held him in my arms long enough for me to forget. He didn’t complain or protest. He held me there. I wondered if he could feel me crying. I wondered if he could feel the stagger of my breath. But I would deny it. I would make all of this an illusion to myself. None of this was real. I repeated it. None of it was real. 

⟷

Time belies itself. No indication ever comes without the pain to supplant it. I learned, by the third noticeable day, that it was now late January. I knew only the certainty was that image, that abhorrent hallucination and the subsequent terror that came with it. There was nothing left for me to do but feel it. I could not avoid nor understand it. I could not attempt to speak by my own volition. My voice was not my voice. There was nothing in me that would allow enough clarity to bring my own sanity to fore. But Victor— Victor was enough.  
The two of us spent an hour or two sitting facing each other in bed. Victor held a book, but occasionally he would break from it and take his hand to my face and observe me, holding me there, gently caressing my cheek and jaw with his thumb. What unfathomable warmth! I couldn’t understand how I knew this man. How was it that he loved me so? But I hadn’t the faculty to remember what happened before. I didn’t know what he meant by touching me so tenderly. I knew only as much as my delirium would offer. But then, I felt loved. Isn’t that enough? Isn’t the feeling of love love itself?  
“Victor,” I murmured. “I wish to quit my dreaming.”  
“Hm, Henry? What is it you mean?”  
“I wish to retire the part of me that is capable of dreaming. I am tired of it. All it does is hurt me. My body is tired of being bewitched by strangers of thought— by death and all its old inhabitants.”  
“Can you imagine that, Henry? Can you imagine who you would be without that persistent want to dream? What poem would come to you? What original thought would fall from your lips? How would you be my Clerval?”  
“But I am tired, Henry.”  
“Of course you are tired—” he coughed, letting go of my face, “it is too much for us to be alive like this. It is too much for us to make choices and have them haunt us. Why don’t we run, Henry? Why don’t we just run?”  
Words failed me.  
“I don’t know. I have—” he lifted his book once again. “I have already tried this once. You know it nearly killed me.”  
“What is it I know, Victor? Is there some event I am unaware of?”  
His brow furrowed. “You don’t recall?”  
I shook my head.  
“Then leave it be.” 

⟷

A day of clarity finally arrived. My hands were freed from their previous clamminess, my throat no longer wracked with pain. I could be certain of very little. Today, Victor was ill. I think, though, that for many of these days Victor was ill. I wanted to know what I had done for those days, what month it was now. But I knew only as much as Victor would tell me. It was just us. It was a world contained within that small apartment. There was nothing to be had and nothing to be done. What I could not receive from Victor, I could not know for sure.  
Today, Victor was angry.  
He was mobile but he looked gaunt again. I can only say I imagined him now— the way he entered the bottom floor, his brow furrowed as if searching, his hands out as if searching, his body almost curled over as if he was bending to strangle someone to death. That position indicated to me how ill he was. This was something I kept forgetting, only to be cruelly reminded every few days. I would see him, or he would touch me, but then I would assume this meant all was well. But of course, this was never the case. In those moments, I was lucid, but I was terrified. I held no understanding of what I needed to do. I held no clear hope for who Victor was. I didn’t understand his rage.  
“Hello, Victor.” I began. “Could you tell me what happened over the past— oh— few weeks maybe? Have you been well?”  
“Clerval.” He murmured, ambling towards me. “You failed me.”  
He coughed violently.  
“What, Victor?”  
His voice lifted in volume.  
“Do you know what you are?”  
“Victor?”  
“I have to restart.”  
Victor sprinted to the kitchen— a guttural instinct told me to follow him. He grabbed a knife, palming it in his hand, shaking like a freezing dog. He came towards me, holding it out as if he were trying to cut into me. I stepped back. My body felt weak— I had no chance at defending myself against him. Or so I thought.  
“Beast! You must be killed! I made you! I will fix you!”  
He threw his weight towards me, but I stepped to the side and extended a foot. He fell to the ground and the knife skated out onto the hardwood floor. His body slinked forward, his hand outstretched, attempting to take the knife once more. I took the knife. I think I was a stranger in that pity— unknowing of how to feel about this man I know occasionally and forget often. I wanted to forgive him. I wanted to hold him in my arms until he felt something that was not pain. Of course, he grabbed at my ankles, he dug his fingernails into my skin. He shook me, but I stood. I walked nonetheless. I placed the knife back in the receptacle. I placed my hope back in my stomach and not my heart. Belief was merely that which sustained me— and I had none of it now. I did not know what to do or for what reason to do it. He looked at me with vigorous rage.  
I was looking at him— though I wished to look through him I had no choice but to glance straight into his eyes. He looked exactly like a dead man— his eyes were cold glass, his face so pulled from the skin he seemed to disappear.  
“Victor,” I pleaded. “I am sorry.”  
I noticed then, his face was covered in sweat once more, his eyes were nearly completely dilated— he was going to slip under. Then, he did, his head striking the wood floor with a firm thump. I left him there, in a state of imperiled shock. I leaned down to look at him, only to notice that his fingernails were coated in my blood. I looked down at my ankles; certainly, they were cut up and bruised by the strength of his grip. I do not want to believe any of this could ever be Victor’s fault. I refuse it. I carried him back to his room but I did not look at him. I carried him like he was already dead. Like his body disappeared under the weight of his life and expired; like time did not treat him well.  
I laid him on the down of his bed, covering him with a thin blanket as to allow him enough air to stay cool. There was a history of things I needed to know. I needed to know the day, what the world looked like at the moment. I needed some space to breathe. Air did not come quick or easy into my lungs— and even when it did it was not long for that space. So I decided, quite firmly, that now I would leave the apartment and search for a newspaper. I would search for something to verify whether or not what I had experienced was aligned with time. The last day I remember was the twentieth of January. I wished to know— for my own sake.  
Upon leaving the apartment, I was struck by the intensity of the sun. The wind was still a breath of cold air. Invariably, I expected the day to, somehow, no longer be the day. I expected it to have changed. Days felt darker from inside the apartment, there was no indication of what could have or had happened. There was no verifiable fact. I did not know what day or time it was. I was ill, but further, I was alone. Yes, I was with Victor, but he was not of his right mind. I was with Victor, but he was burning up— disappearing, vanishing under the crushing weight of his ailment. I did not notice or recall it, but I was still bleeding from inside my pants— somehow he grabbed at the bare skin. Somehow he tore into me.  
No awareness of my body could allow me enough peace to make sense of what was happening in that apartment. Leaving was a brief, atemporal blessing. The winter still blustered. The winter was still a stranger, darting across the sky in an uncouth unfamiliarity. It had spared us from the scourge of snow, and for that I was grateful, but nonetheless the cold berated me, turning me into something I couldn’t quite trace.  
I walked in a half-fugue, pulling together my unruly thoughts. I picked up a newspaper. I read the date, the headline, examined the picture if not merely to see another person’s face. But when I did, the face of a woman morphed into the face of Victor. I threw the paper down. I felt my body grow hot once again while the cold wind stammered against my face. Hope, however, was frozen in time. Where, exactly, I was unsure. But I often imagined those positions where we were intertwined, where he caressed my face with his thumb, where he played with my hair— all of this perfect, impossible disappearance that broke from the blinding light of being.  
But it was dread that touched me. Often it was Victor, but most times it was dread. It was the cold, cutting feeling of the impossibility of him, the vagrant, half-live play of his personality. He existed in a vacuum, then did not exist at all.  
I walked through Ingolstadt.  
I felt the slick shame of being out of the apartment. As if I was only meant to be there. As if none of this mattered besides what happened in there. It made me angry. I couldn’t believe what I believed. I couldn’t believe the feeling in my bones that made me shrink into my ribcage. Wishing, though, was pointless. Denial was pointless. I would hold my hands out to the foot of everything I wanted and hope it would become a fountain.  
Wind howled through the short standing buildings as my feet stamped against the cobblestone, my shoes— wait— I was wearing nothing. People watched me— staring at me with massive eyes. I did not feel real then. But Victor’s face was everywhere. Victor’s face was in the cold of the wind. Victor’s face was in the cobblestone. Victor became the sky, the ground, the breath in my lungs caught in the stillness of cold. And I wanted to escape him. It was pitiful! I was terrified of him!  
I carried on walking. Victor’s eyes plodded over me. Victor’s eyes feasted on my fear and pressed their gaze into the small skin of my body. I needn’t imagine the slowness of it: the Victor’s passing by stopped to stare at me, but they said nothing. They were all him— I suppose they were all real in some way.  
What was it then? I walked without any sense of where I was going, without any hope or indication. I wanted to feel something but didn’t get a feeling or chance. So I simply took off. I did not run. I entered a small alleyway and sat on the cobblestone. I stared at the ground with the soles of my tired, dirty feet, and felt time crackle and pop in my ears. It’s a numbers game, trying to figure out if it made sense for the two of us to run, if it made sense for me to run, if it made sense for what Victor to have done to kill me like he said. If any of it made sense, the equations estimating its probability were swarming in my head— they were real and impossible to ignore.  
I still saw his face in everything. Desperation taunted me. I looked down at the cobblestone bearing his likeness, and softly asked it: “what do you want, friend? You may terrify me, you may break me down, but I love you, and I want to know what you would do.”  
I started at my own words.  
I love you. 

⟷

“Henry,” Victor said, sitting on the couch in his robe. “What has been ailing you?”  
Uncertainty struck me. I did not wish to tell him. I did not wish to make an issue where one needn’t be. This would have indicated a grave error, were I to tell him. To disrupt his peace would merely make him worse. I dodged the question.  
“Do you remember what happened two days ago?”  
He shook his head.  
I walked away from the couch and into the kitchen.  
“You have not noticed the lack of knives, the fact that I have been cautious around you while you are awake?”  
“What?”  
“Allow me to explain it to you.” I was attempting to be gentle, so I softened my tone, but feared sounding like a pedant. “You stumbled down the steps and took the knife. You told me quite clearly that I was a mistake. That you had to repair me. I don’t know from what this idea stemmed, but it was virile, it was constant— enough to make you lunge at me, in all your gauntness, and try to kill me. I stopped you. I wanted to help you. Following this, you fell unconscious. The knife was on the ground and I took it. This scarred me, Victor.” I paused— the words kept entering my mind I love you, why would you do this, but I knew, he had no clue, he couldn’t even remember this occurring.  
I sighed heavily. “I know I cannot ask you why you did this. But I can ask you this: are you well? Do you feel any better? What is it that you recall?”  
His face became deeply pensive.  
“Why would I do that?” He pressed his face into his hands. “I sincerely apologize, Henry.” He looked up at me— I failed to discern whether it was a tear in his eyes or merely my imagination. “Is this what has been ailing you?”  
“Yes.”  
“But what of that time you were in the small chamber? You looked maddened— as if you were seeing a spectre.”  
I reorganized the contents of the cabinets.  
“Maybe we should get you a doctor, Henry. You may be suffering from something. I haven’t a clue what but it was as if you were struck with delirium.”  
I snapped at him: “I am fine, Victor.”  
“But friend— you needn’t be, you can be—” he paused, “no. It isn’t that you can be ill. I am of no position to give you permission to be ill. I am telling you that I think you need to admit that there is an issue arising, that you will suffer if you do not attempt to fix it.”  
“Victor.” I grew angry. “I am here to take care of you. I am fine. As long as I can do that, I am fine. Whether I am fine is dependent on my ability to do this task. I do not care what happens to me.” I began to choke up, but my head was clear as the waters. I wanted to tell him I loved him. I could not stop ideating upon it. It became a face of its own— his, warm, blushing, bearing a bright smile. “I want you to be better, Victor.”  
“As do I.” He paused. “I want you to be better.”  
He stood to his feet, but stumbled. “I want you to understand that you cannot take care of me whilst ill. I will not allow it. I won’t just let you suffer for no reason. I can’t allow you to pain yourself with me when that pain is something you can’t handle.” He shrunk into himself shortly after this admission. “But I am not going to let you live your life recovering from my messes, Henry. I am not allowing you to make sense of your life in the context of mine. This is not how we will do this. I will have you know, I am next to nothing. I have done terrible things that I will not divulge for your safety. I will die soon. It will be bloody, and brutal, solely because of what I have done. But maybe we can all learn from it. That hubris will only hurt those who bear it.”  
He sighed. “I am no man.” He laughed. “I am just detritus.”  
“No, Victor,” I sounded pitiful.  
“I am meant to die, Henry. There is no escaping it. It is oft the case that men ask for redemption; I am beyond it. I have left that life. I am left with only gastly memories, the face I— the—” he stammered. “I should be dead, Henry!” He screamed, crumpling to the ground with heavy tears.  
I approached him and attempted to console him.  
“Why don’t you leave, Henry? I do not understand.” He sobbed. “You will be hurt by me!” He pounds his fists against the ground as I rub his back. “It is incredibly ignorant of you to do this! Do you know the facts? Do you see me? You are a fool. What are you— what are you trying to prove?” He stammered. “Do you want to hurt me? Are you trying to leverage this over me?”  
He moved away from me. Victor’s face contorted.  
“What do you want from me?”  
I stood to my feet. I didn’t want to reckon with this. I did not want to believe what was happening.  
“I want you to be well.”  
“I don’t believe you,” he spat.  
“That does not change anything.”  
“I don’t believe you!” He screamed.  
“So be it.” I stood. I walked out of the apartment again.  
There is no way to tell a man you love him, I supposed, especially when you are not meant to love him— he is a man, I am a man. That sort of abhorrence is unacceptable. But I feel this groping death in my chest when I step away from him. But the air was kind. The grass was quickly becoming verdant again. I believed Victor when he spoke, but because of this I did not believe Victor when he spoke. And because of that, I loved him. Like a terrible, hopeless fool, I loved him. 

⟷

I did not ask Victor about the letter. He was asleep upstairs but in my hands I held a letter from M. Krempe and M. Waldman about the lab where Victor studied. The letter was quite vague and in greatly uncertain terms, written and signed by M. Krempe and no one else. However, one clear factor was the strangeness of M. Krempe’s terms. He spoke of “abhorrent remnants” which he had “begun to clean at much damage to his sanity.” My eyes gazed upon the letter for some time before I was able to gather any strength to question it or wonder what it truly meant for Victor. I merely stowed away the letter in my shirt pocket. Of one thing I had great clarity; Victor cannot know. Another thing, however, struck fear into me: what had Victor done?


	4. For all of this, Yet a moment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Henry and Victor spend more time together and visit the University. However, more terror looms. Henry and Victor have a moment with each other at last.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAY HI! I AM NOT DEAD 
> 
> the next chapter will be posted on the 6th of june... it is waiting... i have been distracted but not exactly busy. just writing a bunch of pokemon shit tbh. 
> 
> WELL i hope you enjoy it. xoxo henry and victor are gay

And through all of this, somehow, Victor proceeded to get better. Victor’s lucidity returned, he was much more ambulatory, his body no longer a husk of itself. This was, of course, thanks to Robin’s meals, to the exercise we got walking briefly outside, bundled tightly as to beat back the cold. How odd this all felt! My body constantly felt beneath his, like he was outpacing me, able to discern before I could. It was as if I had raised a child from nothing and like a parent, I was acutely aware that I had no chance of keeping him here. He carried a clear direction. He knew what he wanted. I hadn’t an inkling if he knew how he would get it. There were possibilities. Belief in them felt improbable at best. I despised all of those considerations. I despised not knowing what my goal was here, what I was doing, where I was headed. I came to study at University of Ingolstadt, yes, but I hadn’t enrolled in lessons. I had nothing to my name. But I did have Victor. 

That day, Victor made a plain suggestion. “We ought to visit the university. I have things I must attend to. And--” he smiled at me, “we must have you meet my professors.” 

The two of us were walking carefully around the square in Ingolstadt. When we exited, we were greeted by Madame Meyer, who sweetly regarded us and offered a meal. We refused, but we appreciated her deeply. There was so much life in this time-- just before the breach of spring, just as the world was coming to a perfect momentum; the buds cut through their covers, the sky coughed up increasing amounts of blue. There was a moon and a sun you could see. There was a warmth growing-- nascent, childlike, but there nonetheless. It was a constant knowledge of something coming, something certain, something to be afraid of. 

I nodded at Victor. “Yes,” I smiled “of course, my dear friend. Of course.” 

What tattered times those were! We were alive but unaware and even disregarding it. We became things that no longer seemed real. We became men. We became each other. I started noticing myself picking up Victor’s mannerisms-- the way he regards me, a gentle smile, a raised brow, a hand carefully placed near his face. Then there was the way he often stood when in the kitchen or attempting to choose a book. He’d stand akimbo, then, after a while, he would interlock his fingers and press his arms outward in front of him in a long, labored stretch, making weak sounds as he did. He would smile, no matter what. There were times when he would drink a cup of tea that he would squeeze the cup-- which I thought of as exceedingly strange, but nonetheless, somehow endearing. I looked at him for many days as if he was a stranger, but I became warm with him again as he regained clarity. 

Many days we slept close to each other-- if not in the same bed, then on the floor, on the couch, either his head on my shoulder or mine in his lap. On one occasion, we laid on the floor and Victor, half conscious, curled up beside me, throwing his arm over my torso and nuzzling me close. He whispered something to me, but I couldn’t make it out. It was so few words, but they felt familiar and strange in the same instant. I was held, hoping, and raptured then. It did not happen in the same way again, but we were constantly in each other’s grasp, hanging on the other’s word. I missed this Victor. This Victor was my companion. What belief I had in him now culminated in these moments. 

But there were others, as there always were. Days were inconsistent and uncertain, the winds changed as much as he did. For some days, Victor was no one-- or, he was anyone-- though, the difference is often insignificant. I feared him. Victor mastered varying my terrors. One day, he spent an entire morning pacing back and forth between the front of the apartment and the back, moving his hands frantically and speaking to no one in particular. When I inquired, he offered me no clear answer. Merely, he said “I need to figure out what I am going to do.” Then paced away. 

The only factor steadily maintained was the reality in Victor’s eyes. Not once could I posit that he had no clue what was occuring in the world. He could contextualize, he could infer. He was a man again. A strange one, but yes, a man. And I think-- so desperately-- that he was my friend. I am full of imaginations, though. The poets lie, you know. I think they assume when they use words that we all understand what they mean, but they exist in domains separate from ours. Not higher, but different, jettisoned from the cold of the world, into a strange warmth of higher ideals. And those higher ideals are largely trash. They are largely disastrous. This is all I have learned from Victor over these days. Victor believed in higher ideals, and he was left with this. Victor studied science and was left with this. I refused to believe that it was his fault. I believed science failed him. Rage teemed in my breast on every insistence of this thought. I could not separate Victor’s ailments from his choice of study. 

I often wished to plead with Victor-- forfeit it! But there is nothing left for me to tell him. He still wants to go back to the university. But also, he wants to find his problem and destroy it. He told me that much. 

“I cannot tell you what it was,” he murmured once, shrinking into himself. 

“I wish to know, Victor.” 

He snapped: “It is for your safety, Henry.” 

“I can only inform you that I must fix it. I think I will speak to others, attempt consolation.” 

“Do you not think I can console you?” 

“You have only done marginally well. There are men with greater awareness than you who could assist more, with more philosophy than you have offered.” 

“Do you think I have not studied these things? That I have not spent all this time  _ wishing  _ to console you how I would like, rather than having you fed and washing you? Is this what you think I prefer?” 

“I do not think you prefer it. Maybe you can prove it to me, that you have this knowledge.” He taunted. 

I would have felt challenged if his ignorance did not make me laugh. “Victor, dear, you are stupid. I think you are a fool.” 

“Ah, but you know I am not.” 

“Often,” I began, “you make me wonder.” 

He laughed. As did I. 

“Do you think, Henry,” he sighed as his laughter quelled and his body steadied. “That I am worth something? That even if the mistake I made was so abhorrent as to defy morality-- would you still think I was worth something?” 

I looked at him calmly. My answer was plain and unavoidable. 

“I imagine-- no, I presume I needn’t imagine-- that I would think you are worth something. I would think you are worth more than most men. That you exist as a paragon of skill. I have watched you. You moved through this life with single minded motivation. This is enough to bring any man to greatness. However, not all men are capable of holding sense enough to make use of every opportunity. So you are special, Victor. And with all due respect; you terrify me.” 

Victor laughed. As did I. 

“But of course, you do not know what I have done.” Pensively, his eyes sunk to the floor. “I believe if you did…” he paused, “you would not even think of me as a man.” 

“I ensure you, I would.” 

He groaned. “Henry, you do not understand what I have done, and I simply will not inform you. It is impossible for you to come to an intelligent conclusion on that evidence alone. Because you have only conjecture-- you only have what you perceive me to be.” 

I knew more than I let on. I thought of the letter that sat ever yet in my breast pocket. My heart pushed me to scold him. My throat was dry. 

“I will not defend conjecture. So allow us to leave this discourse here.” 

He sighed. “Yes, I suppose.” 

  
⟷

Victor woke me early that day. He was dressed and brimming with energy. There was an ease to him now. I may have imagined it. But surely, his face was fuller, he was simple and unbothered, he didn’t have this terrible weight hanging over him. But I imagine it was still somewhere in his eyes. I imagine he was still pleading with God to have himself killed. I know these things do not go away so simply. As I know. I have felt this in respect to Victor this entire time. Perhaps he was right about me. Perhaps he knew something, even in that terrible delirium, that I did not know about myself. I know, and know, and know that there is no chance that he was referring to me. I know this through context, but of course, I am incapable of listening to myself when it comes to Victor. He is a mistake I rehash, re-perform, and insist upon at every turn. But I love him. 

I wish I could be true to this; I think I love him beyond the threshold of common friendship. I do not love him how a man loves his friend. I love him how a man loves his wife-- the perilous enrapturement, my hands wishing to be intertwined with his at all times, my thoughts darting to him at every hopeless moment. Let me believe in something that does not hurt me like this does! I beg it! And yet, I may beg, but end only in wanting more, hungering more, loving more. I think I am ill. I think there is something wrong with me. 

I rose. Note, I was often more exhausted than him. I was often laboring to rise, laboring to speak clearly. Victor undoubtedly noticed. He would often speak to me like he knew this, with a certain strange gentleness. Especially at moments when we touched-- he seemed more tender, more cautious. But other times, he would get angry. He would snap. He would vanish into realms of unrest. And each time I would forgive him, never taking the pain to heart. He was mine. He loved me. There was no need to admit any flaw-- there were so few that had nothing to do with me to speak of. 

I groaned and rose from the bed, got prepared to head out, and stood at the door as Victor gathered a few of his things. 

“We will eat at this quaint little cafe near the grounds. Then, after that, we will enter the school and you will meet M. Krempe and M. Waldman. I am sure they will like you. I am sure of it.” He was extraordinarily giddy, grinning ear to ear. 

We walked. The sky battled with itself, once stammering color, then bereaved with clouds. The wind picked up and fell. Ingolstadt no longer felt like a stranger to me. It pressured me, but it was a kind pressure, like a friend holding their companion to account. However, I felt discomfort. There was something in the air that unsettled me. I wished to put my finger on it, but the idea of it grew like a stone in my throat-- and that is how I knew it. This feeling: a shudder in the crook of my neck, a cold sweep across the nape of it, my body growing tense and irredeemably fearful, my hair standing on end. I was afraid; desperate, and afraid. 

I looked around, Victor carried on talking. 

“I just think--” he paused, “that there is a chance that the philosophy I have learned is not the thing my professors think it is.” He explained the intricacies of his field of study, he pulled together things I would understand. “I wish you could understand me clearer, but I am bound by the limits of poets-- that, I think, is your limitation. I wish you had studied with me, Henry. We would have made great partners.” 

I only heard his final words, which disrupted my fear. “Yes,” I stammered. “We would have been.” 

I looked behind me. Victor, whose eyes had been ahead, turned to examine me, carefully measuring my movements as I anxiously moved to look back to Victor before refocusing on the path. I think that instinct was solely to know he was still there: to know he was still a reality I could return to. As I turned, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a man of enormous stature, the same one I had seen in dreams and could instinctively remember from hallucinations. That feeling of dread expanded tenfold: sweeping pain destroyed my focus. 

“Henry?” He touched my hand. “Are you listening?” 

“Did you see that, Victor?” My voice shook, immediately reminded of the old weariness of paranoia. 

“No?” He looked around, “it must’ve been your imagination.” 

“No, I saw it. It was a man of immense stature, grumbling and tossing himself about across the sidewalk.” 

Victor looked at me with terror in his eyes. For a moment, we stopped, but Victor then surveilled the area, took my arm, and began walking with haste. 

“Victor?” 

“Do not look back. If you see it again, tell me. But we do not speak of this.” Bewildered, I wanted to speak but knew his request was immutable. 

We no longer walked at the same pace, I lingered a few steps behind, tracing the path of his anxious gait. I wanted to ask again and though I thought against it, I was guided by a strange terror inside of me, by the feeling of a lingering hand on my face-- no, the entire width of my head, just large enough to completely crush me. I asked him, instinctively: 

“So I did not imagine that?” 

“You did imagine that. I am just--” he paused for a moment, “concerned for your sanity, Henry. I have seen you over these past days, you have not been yourself.” 

I knew this was true. I knew that something had been dysregulated inside of me, but was further aware of the fact that this was not the worst I had felt, that my coherence was not only in grasp but loosely in my hands. 

“But Victor-- I thought I was--” we quickly approached the tower of the university. 

“No. You are not. Clearly you are not, you are seeing illusions, hallucinating, it is by sheer luck that you haven’t yet acquired a fever.” He paused, “I think bringing you here may have been a mistake.” 

“It was not!” I pleaded. “I promise you, it was a fluke. This has-- never happened before.” 

“Fine.” He sighed. “Let us go in.” 

Inside, the furnishings proved immaculate, the walls perfectly white, the organization of the school was apparent no matter where we went. The walls were adorned with thick slabs of wood upon which papers and notes were left. On doors hung thick slabs of metal with names embossed into the front. Victor led me up the stairs. 

“This here is where many of the students will congregate, many of them our age, quite foolish though, and rather obnoxious.” 

He stopped, “once we get up here we will be in the laboratory area. M. Krempe and M. Waldman will be in their offices. I will introduce you to M. Waldman first.” 

I shuddered at the foreboding feeling of something lingering behind me. But I could not tell him. There was no one I could tell. Who would believe me? 

We passed by laboratories with massive, heavy wooden doors, each with a weighty seeming knob on the outside. Finally, we approached one final laboratory with a single door propped open, the noise of chemicals gurgling on the inside. Victor smiled wide. But I disappeared. I snuck off as Victor entered the laboratory. But he did not notice. I slinked into the small corners of the hallway and looked at my hands, feeling that same dread I felt outside, that same dread I felt in the small chamber, that same dread I felt when I saw-- no-- no-- but this is what is true-- the same dread I felt when I first saw Victor again, when we spent our first night in that apartment. That fear was pervasive and unavoidable. I sat down in the corner of the stairwell’s threshold. I shook, my face in my hands. I wished to cry but tears were too much of a labor. I presume Victor wished to see me. But he did not come. 

I do not know what hurt more-- not being found by him, or the fear that stemmed from him. Knowledge is a small foreign thing that listlessly grows in my chest. It is a stranger to me. And eventually, I did cry. No one passed by. No one looked. I was truly and honestly alone. That was, until Victor arrived, hand outstretched and consoled me. With fury, my feeling of love expanded and could not steady. I wanted to hold him in my arms for as long as I could. To kiss him on the head, on the lips, by his hand-- I wished to thank him. And he introduced me to his professors. He made me feel as if I mattered to him. I was… strangely alive at that moment. The fear subsided. I think that was the first true time. We had many more to come. 

⟷

  
  


My father is a terrible, impatient man. He does not believe that I am capable of doing the things I was called to do, of being a man of my own. Even when I worked with him, there was no affection, no genuine love in his heart for me. So to my chagrin, a letter arrived, forwarded from Alphonse Frankenstein, to Victor, then to me. I sat at Victor’s study to read it, my hands shaking as I fumed with impotent rage. 

Victor approached as I read it, looking at me with genuine concern. 

“Henry?” He murmured. Stronger now: “what is wrong?” 

I threw the letter down hard. “My damned father!” 

He placed a hand on my shoulder. Immediately, I recalled my father holding his hand on my shoulder as he told me about the business, that same business that would ruin my life for the following ten or so years. I wished he was dead often. But I reconciled, I pretended everything was okay, pretended he was a man he clearly was not. There was no hope for me now. I explained it to Victor. 

“He has found a woman he wants me to marry.” 

Victor didn’t smile. He laughed. “Doesn’t he know you are meant to be studying?” 

I laughed, wishing he would have said, ‘doesn’t he know you love me?’ 

“He does not care, Victor. He has never cared. Not for a moment in his life has he cared for me in any respect. He has merely watched me work, watched me suffer, watched me plead for something that didn’t hurt like hell. I wish he would leave me alone. I have made my way in the world thanks to him, yes. I have money to my name thanks to him, yes. But he is no father to me. Alphonse is more of a father to me than he will ever be.” I stopped feeling the vitriol in my voice. “I wish I could burn this letter.” 

The night was young, the sky turning a deep blue as the sun crossed the threshold of day into late evening. 

“Henry, you can.” 

I shook my head. “I cannot advise it. I will need it in case this comes again. I am sure he will find me, with this woman in stow, he will hurt me then make me think I do not need school-- that I do not need you, and thus, that I should marry her and come work with him. I do not believe I could--” I hesitated. 

“You could what, dear friend?” 

“I do not believe I could survive that.” 

Victor sighed. “Henry?” He started again: “Henry, thank you for all you did for me in these past months-- but I know you are not well. First with seeing a beast, next with the rage, and this statement? That you could not survive it? What would kill you, Henry? Would you do the unthinkable?” 

I looked at the letter, then across to my hands. 

“I don’t know.” 

“That is something you  _ should  _ know, Henry.” 

I attempted to speak, but stammered. “I don’t understand.” 

“If you wish to die by your hand, then you would know, correct? You would understand.” He kneeled next to me. “It is like Homeric heroes, when it is time to die, they can see the spear, or, they know when they have taken too much damage. And Henry, you have taken no such damage. You are still a happy man. You are still the man I knew. You are still my friend.” 

“You have told me many things in this time, Victor.” I began, “one of them being so dark that I dare not repeat it, so surely, you must understand the limits of this vigor.” He was stunned. “Haven’t you recalled that? How much of this time do you truly remember?” 

“I don’t remember much.” He sighed. “The fevers were loathsome--” 

“Oh I know.” 

“I think I recall Madame Meyer. I don’t recall how we arrived there anymore-- I think that perished in a fugue state. I recall many days in bed. I recall, well… I recall you. I recall you always being there. Not once did you stop being a reality, nor were you static. Often you kissed me upon the head, though sweat lingered. I felt cared for. I remember the days we fell asleep interlocked in each other's bodies-- we were bedfellows, kind to each other and hopeful still. I recall the rage I felt at times…” He trailed off, a sudden loss falling over him. 

“Do you remember the knife? Or my telling you of it?” 

“No.” 

“So be it.” I laughed. “Anyway, Victor. We will not labor this point.” I sighed. “What I am attempting to say is, this feeling is unfamiliar to you solely by amnesia. This feeling is not unfamiliar to me, through you, through those years with my father. I have felt pain in this respect. So I am angry, and I do not wish to humor him.” 

“I suppose that is all you can do. But even if it does become real, you must survive it. For my sake. I haven’t a clue what grieving would do to me anymore; there are so many things in my mind that look like dying now-- and none of them, as far as I know, will kill me. This strikes terror into me, Henry. I wish to be with you. But I am afraid of the things I have done and the things I think--” Victor noticed his rambling now. “I am sorry.” 

I almost began to cry. I scooped up Victor and held him in my arms-- I did cry, minute, soft tears, my rage dissipated, my fingers in his hair. All the poets speak of love. But they do not understand it. Not in word. There is no word to speak it; it is inherently language-less, half above the reality. Tangled in forms. I wanted to kiss him. Imagine us here forever. 

⟷

He suggested a picnic. I thought of the world as it was then as a slow thaw slowly approaching warmth. I imagined myself touching the flat of that ice and realizing there is nothing there but liquid. I imagined my body being knee deep in liquid, the world uncomfortable, but more inhabitable than it was before. Was any of this real? I imagined Victor’s voice would echo in my head like it often did in a dream. But it didn’t. Victor’s voice was there. Victor’s face was there. Victor was there. And I loved him, foolhardy and hopeless, I loved him. 

Robin made us a meal per Victor’s request. He crafted it quickly; a few sandwiches, a bottle of wine, cups, not fancy, but surely functional. The wonder of it all, though, was Victor’s joy. He looked like a young boy again. He looked so enraptured with this prospect that there was nothing I could do but be infected by that joy. We thanked Robin and left, Robin leaving soon behind. Ingolstadt bowed to us. The trees swayed in a warm wind, the kindliness of every face seemed to beam off of us. We were so impeccably happy here, walking. But I wished to put my hand in his, and though it did wander, he pulled it away before I had a chance. Regret flooded me, but not for long. Victor turned to me, smiling. 

“Later, Henry.” 

I laughed. “Fine, Doctor Frankenstein.” I said, playfully. 

“I don’t think I’ll ever truly have that title,” he remarked, still warm. 

“How so?” 

“I haven’t much interest in my studies anymore.” He sighed, “and I am not sure I can handle it much. My body is still somewhat weak, my mind still fails me. I am not nearly as sharp as I once was.” 

I shook my head. “Victor, this changes nothing. You are Victor Frankenstein. You perform feats unknown.” I was exaggerating now, but only partially, “you strike fear into the hearts of men, you create theories and ideas no one has thought of! Victor Frankenstein! Doctor of natural philosophy!” 

He laughed. “Oh, Henry.” He turned the corner. “Here we are.” 

The spot Victor chose was simple, a little grassy enclave enclosed by two recently abandoned buildings-- though they were abandoned, the vines only just now begun to prevail, the grass underneath had yet to become overgrown, there was no one around, as the space beyond was merely more grass, disconnected from other houses, and the water, which we could hear quite well from our position. 

Victor set down the picnic blanket, then the basket. We sat calmly. I simply stared at him as he set out all of the food. He laughed as he did it, starting as a coy laugh, then growing into a hearty one. “You are staring at me, Henry.” 

“Yes, I am.” I declared. 

“Well stop it.” 

“Why would I wish to stop seeing your face?” 

He blushed. 

“Henry, you are a strange man, you know.” He paused, lifting a sandwich and biting into it. He chewed, then spoke again. “This is not what men are meant to do, you know. But we are doing it anyway.” 

“I know,” I stopped, thinking of my father’s shame. It almost paralyzed me. 

“But I do not care. I have never cared. I have only cared about you. I only care about the things we will do together while we are here, the people we will become, the things we will study. The--” he paused “no, I will say it.” He laughed, “I will say it.” 

“What will you say?” 

He paused, setting down the sandwich on a plate. 

I interrupted him before he could begin again. I moved to sit beside him. 

“I think I know what you are going to say.” 

“I am afraid of it, Henry.” 

“As am I.” 

I sighed. “But I will say it.” I felt my father’s hand on my shoulder, tightening. “I love you, Victor.” 

His eyes closed and he turned bright pink. Then, I know not where this instinct came from, but I kissed him. He kissed me back, but only for a moment-- a brief second where every muscle in my body was relaxed, every motion I made and thought I had completely simple. 

Then he pulled away. I stared right into his eyes at a terribly close distance. I could see tears, joy? Confusion? Then I realized what I had done. 


	5. I think we ought to eat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just a touch of sadness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IM SORRY. remind me never to give myself a hard deadline again. here it is. Enjoy.

“Spare me this, Henry.” He murmured. 

Victor’s eyes hung half closed whilst his face was gentle, contorted into a kind expression, warmly facing in my direction. I wondered how long it would take him to realize that what I had done was terrible-- abhorrent-- and should not have occured. 

“But I made a mistake, Victor.” 

“That,” he began, “as I have been telling you, was not a mistake.” 

“How am I meant to believe that?” 

“Aren’t you a poet, Henry?” He laughed, his eyes gently gazed upon me. “Don’t you know the machinations of love? The way it befalls strangers as much as it does friends? The way it dances upon the tongues of men and women? It plays to our sense of danger, friend. It makes us realize the paradigms are useless.” 

“You are speaking nonsense, Victor.” 

“I am speaking like you, Henry.” He allowed it to linger, then began to laugh. 

“How so?” 

“I am attempting to be joyous, hopeful, knowledgeable of the pains and wonders of the world. Attempting to be intelligent in emotions. Like you. Like the man I love.” 

I blushed, but swiftly felt a strange disdain for that sentence-- it burst out before I could regulate it. 

“This is against nature.” 

“Oh Henry-- I have done many things against nature.” 

I looked down at my hands. 

“But that is besides the point…” He sighed, “I think we can be happy here. Happier than we have been before. Happier than we’ve been our whole lives.” 

I smiled, interjecting; “I agree.” 

“And you--” he tousled about in my hair. My head laid in his lap, my body curled on the floor like a young cat. He sat with his legs out long, receiving me. “You make me desperately, wantonly happy. Like nothing has ever done. And yes, there have been things ailing me, but you stir an amnesia. You make the wind settle, my hands ease. Imagine how I must feel-- to have been consoled so directly by you, only to find that I--” he stammered, “I have been stunned into knowledge by you. I have been stunned into knowing myself better than I did before.” 

He placed the book in his left hand onto the floor. 

“But that doesn’t matter, Henry, because I wish to know you. I wish to know the patterns of your life. I have seen much of it. But I want to see more. I want to see  _ everything.”  _

I cannot tell you if this was the Victor I knew. He was no stranger, but perhaps, in this knowing warmth, he became someone different, someone untouched by an imperfect scenario. 

“Is this perfect to you, Victor?” I turned my head and his hand moved out of the way to allow it. “Is this what you want?” 

“Yes, Henry. It is. And desperately.” He laughed, caressing my cheek. “Haven’t I made that clear?” 

⟷

Ever since we visited the university, all of the instances of that figure appearing in my mind have increased. I have not seen it plain and in the open how I had before, but its spectre seems to haunt me. I now know the curvature of its face. I now know the sort of voice it has. There is something about it that is more than unsettling-- hellish, even. It is a border between life and death, looking down from legs so malformed and ill-begotten that I cannot believe they are real. I am rationalizing it. I am holding my voice from screaming each night when its face appears in the window-- or in the corner-- or in the mirror. I had told Victor and continued to tell Victor that I had not seen it since. I had been imagining things but ceased to imagine that thing. He often remarked, “oh Henry, I hope, however, that your imagination stays intact.” But I could not manage that much. The freedom of my thoughts led to the damage of my psyche: I could not think without diving into the depths of fear. One evening, late at night while Victor was out viewing the stars, I saw the beast again after thinking of poems for too long. 

I was caught up in thought, then, out of the corner of my eye, there he was. His back slung down, his eyes were half closed, his face, however, was not his. I looked at it, approaching it slowly. However, when I came to a satisfactory distance, it was Victor’s face there. The curve of his cheek and the soft warmth of his eyes were hollowed. He looked down at me and I began to shake. Its hand outstretched, it almost touched me-- then-- I heard a voice. 

“Henry, love?” It was Victor. 

I became quite aware of who I was, where I was, and what I needed. 

“Are you well?” 

I smiled. “Now that you are here.” 

I wished and often presumed that Victor’s presence would be enough. Many nights, it was not. We did not yet sleep in the same bed due to my protest, but he did sleep with me on the couch, on outstretched blankets in the small chamber.

He joked with me one night, “you know, the bed is big enough for us.” 

I laughed. “I am not prepared.” 

“You must know this would feel the same. Except--” he laughed, “we’d be far more comfortable.” 

The first night I slept in bed with Victor, I was struck with a terrible dream. 

I know this much; he was laying beside me, his face nuzzled in my chest, my head just above his. I slowly began to fall asleep, but in the few moments before I descended, I saw that beast again. Soon after, though, I was captivated by the fullness of sleep, unable to think of anything, or be aware. That was, until I realized where I stood now. 

These were the environs of Geneva. The woods just behind the estate where Victor grew up and I merely visited. I knew it, but only by merit of spending time in their reaches with Victor. I knew the trees, the grass. But this was not that half-home. The grass was utterly static, and a plain, stark white. The trees stood naked, without a single leaf to cover their branches. Viewing my surroundings, I found merely traces of facts, of certainty. I wondered what I would do-- my hands and body shook with fear. 

I do not know what spurred me into this, but I called his name. “Victor?” 

I looked about frantically. I wondered what would be left were he not to be here. But of course he was here! Where else would he be. I looked down at myself. My outfit consisted of clothes I had only worn when I was a child. My stature was far lower to the ground, my hands hadn’t a smidgeon of hair upon them. I walked nonetheless. 

More vagaries and strange scenes appeared as I moved deeper into what was often a very thin forest connected by a back path into the small town that lay just beyond the estate. There was a white fox, a dead deer being preyed upon by gray vultures, a small dog chained to a post that appeared from nothing. Everything wasted at different levels of emaciation. I wondered if Victor was here. 

Behind me, I could hear something breathing slow, steady breaths as I approached what I presumed to be a clearing. “Ah Victor,” I was not in control of my voice. “I wonder what pain we will find today.” 

The clearing snapped into freezing. 

I was cold, though, when I looked at myself I was now wrapped in blankets-- or sheets? I could not tell. I was not an active participant in this dream anymore. My body moved without my knowledge and without my direction. Finally, I arrived at a complete stop at a massive boulder bereaved with great amounts of moss and snow. I shivered. I was fearful, not as the dreamer, but as an observer. My body moved from the front of the rock to the side. 

“Victor?” I shouted-- but did not shout. No noise left my vessel. 

Victor’s body laid before me in a curled position, but not fully, his head looked as if it was resting on something, his eyes were half closed but covered in ice. And notably, he was completely naked, his ribs jutting out of his torso, his chest with many protruding bones. There was no sense behind it. I looked at him for a long moment with terror growing. Then, the vessel moved over Victor. I looked down. I was so large! I was terrifyingly massive. My whole body seemed to be made of disparate pieces. Then, I was stomping upon his body. The bone cracked swiftly, leaving no space for any repair. I did it again. Blood spewed up from Victor’s body. The bone jutted out from the skin in shattering. I was terrified. 

I heard his voice. 

“You,” weakly, “I created you.” 

⟷

“You have been of quite bad temperament for these past days, Henry.” 

I wondered what he was talking about, but did not look up from my book. Then he spoke again, repeating himself, and I felt a tug on my shirt. 

“Are you well? Have your thoughts escaped you again?” He looked at me pleadingly; “or is it that they have overrun you?” 

“Neither, Victor.” I sighed. “I am merely tired. Attempting to read these poems, not truly understanding them like I am accustomed to.” 

“It isn’t always easy.” He sighed, moving closer to me on the couch. “Perhaps you could read it to me.” 

I smiled. “Yes, maybe I could. Perhaps that would help.” 

I read him the poem. There was something nostalgic about that. I recalled the moments when we were younger-- the first time we did it. Victor and I were about the same age, around nine or ten. I found a copy of a book my father kept. One, mind you, he did not want me to know about, or wish for me to read, because, as he told me when he punished me for purloining it, ‘it is a filthy thing, filled with improper and uncouth ideas that should not be accepted or known for any reason.’ I was too foolish to ask why  _ he  _ had it then, or how he had originally acquired it. But I left that alone. I was far too young to die. 

Victor and I had yet to accustom each other with our likenesses, how we sat, what ways we enjoyed being regarded. Even then I wondered if he felt this same strangeness I did. I was too afraid to ask. I read him each word on the page carefully, measuring the length of my words like my father taught me, not to drawl or stammer, to be certain but not overconfident. 

Victor watched me as if he was drawing in every morsel of language I let slip. Then, as I continued, I realized the contents of the book-- the way the lines turned around on each other, growing to make no sense as we carried on. I looked at the words and laughed. 

“Victor?” I asked him, sliding the book to him. “Do you understand this?” 

He stared at the page for a moment then remarked, “absolutely not, Clerval.” 

And we laughed. He laughed hard and placed a hand on my shoulder, he smiled at me but couldn’t keep his eyes long enough to notice that while I lightly laughed, I had my eyes fixed upon him, a simple, steady gaze static upon his face as it lifted and fell with the rhythm of his joy. 

Now, Victor gazed upon me like I did him then. I laughed at a line in the poem. 

“Solitude…” I sighed, “why do the poets always talk about solitude? Haven’t they any idea how utterly painful it is?” 

“And how boring.” Victor tacked on. 

“That as well,” I laughed. “I suppose we see these things differently?” 

Matter-of-factly: “we do not.” 

“How so?” 

“Pain is very boring. Boredom can be very painful. They are not mutually exclusive.” 

“I see.” 

“As you will learn, if you hurt for too long there is a monotony to it. There is a way it begins, and if you are lucky, a way it ends. The events surrounding pain are what give it taste. The pain itself is useless, meaningless, and completely uninteresting. That is why I despise fighting for fighting’s sake, or why I despise being pushed into situations where pain is inevitable but there is no worthwhile goal.” 

“And if there is, is it worth it?” 

“Absolutely.” 

⟷

Victor read a series of letters to me. The first was simple, from Elizabeth, with much love. She explained to Victor the goings on at home, how Ernest and William were doing, how their lives had changed so much, and how much older and mature they were in this time. I had not seen them, Victor had not seen them; the letter was welcome. As he read on, it moved into more concerning territory. Elizabeth began to remark about Victor’s face, the way she wished to kiss him. And this filled me with a strange, unsettled rage. I did not realize I would be so quick to jealousy. But I swallowed it. I smiled. 

“She surely loves you.” I said, attempting to mirror kindness and respect. 

“I believe she does.” Victor was blushing. 

The next letter was from Alphonse. He wrote at length about Victor’s childhood, to which I listened with great attention, unmoving in my position as he regaled every story Alphonse could recall in his letter. I saw him speak, but I kept reciting Elizabeth’s words in my head. Yes, I loved Elizabeth also. I loved her like a sister. But Victor was not someone I was willing to share. I grinded my teeth, feeling my fist tighten around my pant leg. 

The final letter was from Elizabeth again, and before he could finish, I interrupted. 

“Victor, spare me.” 

He nodded knowingly and said nothing else. In rage, I stormed up to the large chamber. I did not know where the feeling came from. I was swept with an uncomfortable terror, my body pulsing with potent rage. I thought of killing Elizabeth-- then immediately recoiled at my capability-- I looked at my hands and thought of them with her blood-- I was terrified. I thought again,  _ who am I?  _ And something in me answered,  _ you are Henry Clerval.  _ Then in Victor’s voice  _ a mistake. I need to fix you. I need to restart.  _

Victor did not knock. He opened the door, and he sat on the bed. I stared at him as he walked with his uneven gait across the room, then as he sat and tapped his hand against the mattress. 

“Here,” he offered. 

I smiled. I loved him. 

  
  


⟷

Mystery beats a man back. I had spent every day thinking of the beast I saw, the way it seemed to follow Victor, the way it had yet to disappear from my memory, or even my thoughts although Victor prompted and wished for it to do so. I imagine the mind is not such a simple organism, then. Victor was at the butcher that morning. I was alone in the apartment and wished to know what Victor was hiding from me. So simply, I made a decision. I am a poet, I can read between the lines. I did not know exactly what “abhorrent remnants” meant, but I did know extremely clearly that what the professor said later made the facts immutable. 

“I will return them to the morgue, or at least try to. What on earth were you doing, Frankenstein?” 

I immediately knew. I needed to discover the morgue nearest to the university. I then needed to discover just  _ how  _ Victor acquired these “abhorrent remnants.” There was no means that made sense. They do not  _ give away  _ the body parts of people. It simply does not function that way. The only way Victor would have been able to acquire enough remnants to make his professor terrified was to acquire them either consistently or by other means. I wondered-- what on earth has Victor done?

A strange feeling overwhelmed me-- mayhaps it was best for me to approach M. Krempe and ask him myself, to see what he found. I thought the mystery may serve us well, a little entertainment. But I began to think of how Victor had been acting, his fever, his violent fits-- I began to realize it would likely be far more insidious than entertainment. It would be a danger to even consider letting Victor know as he was already preparing to run off at random. But perhaps this was no longer the case. I did not know whether I was deluding myself by thinking Victor would stay out of the small labor of love, but something told me he wouldn’t just as much as something told me he would. 

I slipped out of the apartment just as the clocktower chimed. Ingolstadt is a vibrant city and yet, it slipped between life and death for me, appearing and disappearing as a home, becoming the abode of thousands of strangers, or, becoming the ghost of an abominable body. I walked from the city into the university campus. The air was static. Not a single wind perturbed the stillness, not a voice, not a motion. I entered the university, climbed the stairs to the laboratories, and knocked on M. Krempe’s door. 

“Sir? It is Henry Clerval, Victor’s companion.” 

I heard shuffling inside. Then the door opened. 

“Good man!” He answered, smiling. “I have my qualms about Victor, but you seem to be a good man.” 

“Thank you.” I sat before his desk. “I have a question to ask of you.” 

I took out Victor’s letter. “You sent Victor this letter concerning his activities in the lab. You spoke of returning items to the morgue, of all places. I wondered why you sent this-- but more importantly, what you found.” 

  1. Krempe immediately shrunk. He looked down at the ground and then scratched his moustache. “I cannot tell you anything.” 



“Why not, sir?” 

He grew heated. “Simply because.” 

“Sir, that is no answer.” 

“Clerval! Do you understand that just because you are Victor’s friend does not mean you know who he is as a man? I have seen things that you do not wish to. I cannot tell you simply because it would annihilate me to speak it out loud. And because--” he paused. “I cannot tell you that either.” 

“Has Victor stopped you from speaking?” As soon as it left my mouth I realized how ridiculous this sounded. “No, of course not. Why would he?” I laughed, not noticing M. Krempe’s long expression, burning with a strange embarrassment. 

“Henry,” he paused, gathering his thoughts. “I think you should go home.” 

“Sure.”

“No,” he sighed, “I am saying you should return to where you were before you came to Victor. Victor told me that you were visiting intending to attend this university. I think that is a mistake. I believe there is so much contingent upon Victor maintaining his studies that it is dangerous for you to interfere.” 

“Interfere?” 

“Yes. I have…” he laughed. “You both think you are inconspicuous.” 

“What?” 

“You are well aware of what I am speaking of.” 

My stomach sank. 

“Anyway, M. Clerval.” He tapped his stubby finger on the flat of his desk. “You should be off. I apologize that I could not be of more help.” 

“You could have been.” I snapped. “But you chose not to be.” 

I left the office as M. Krempe sighed heavily. It was not merely that M. Krempe had not given me any information, further than that, it was the sheer reality that he knew something he should not know. That he was aware of a clear and present situation that may quickly become dangerous were anyone to discover it. But fear and love are often tangled in the other’s skin, captivating one with touch and appearing different in every cold iteration. I knew, somehow, I was meant to remove Victor from M. Krempe’s grasp-- or, more simply, the image of us from M. Krempe’s grasp. We needed to apply a tense secrecy, a silent pact that this joy would be confined to walls and nowhere else. 

I slinked out of the university with a pronounced feeling of disappointment. I felt my body grow uneasy as I exited. The sky felt darker and less welcoming, the wind picked up a bit. I wondered if this was an omen. I believed in such things. Frequently the want for unknowable knowledge would strike me: I would look everywhere for an inkling of an idea as to how exactly to obtain it, but sadly, that was impossible. Often I thought I could find it in Victor’s field of study. He had told me many years ago, before attending the university of alchemy, the ability to bring eternal life, Agrippa, etc. etc. But he had ceased speaking of such things since I had seen him. Further, he had grown somewhat colder, less hopeful. I do not know whether this was due to his actions-- the consequences of which he keeps secret-- or merely his spirit being damaged from its previous tenderness. 

I returned to the apartment. Victor was not here yet, so I sat on the couch and merely stared at the ceiling with my eyes just barely brimming with tears. Finally, after about twenty or so minutes, Victor entered. 

Victor slung himself into the house like his body was heavy and immutable. He moved slow, but as I examined him further I realized there were tears in his eyes. I wished to know what was wrong with my companion-- why he hurt in such a way. 

“Victor, dear?” 

I heard him sniffle. 

“Henry,” he murmured. He approached the couch and sat down. “I do not know why I am alive, Henry. These feelings-- I remember them. They are not strangers to me and I don’t think they ever have been. I know them like the back of my hand.” He held his hands over his eyes but he was clearly crying heavily. Occasionally he would hiccup, unable to speak any further. 

“Yes, this is not the first time.” I sighed. “But you ought to tell me what the original cause was-- what reason the world gave you for this sordid ache.” 

“I have told you many times, Henry.” His head turned to me and his eyes held disdain and stunning fragility in the same vessel. “I cannot tell you. For your safety.” 

“Then tell me clearly how you are feeling.” 

“It is simple.” He begins. “I have done something terrible. Though I cannot tell you, I gather you can understand guilt. I do not assume you can understand the immensity of it, the way it has grown so pervasive in my life that it tends to be all I can think of. How it grows into a face, a body, an amalgamation of torn and broken parts. It makes me crave a release I may never receive. It makes me crave the feeling of hands breaking me down, crushing me under a boot, the feeling of having my lack of worth confirmed. I deserve it, Henry. There is nothing left for me but death-- but only after I have repaired what I have done. Only after that may I be allowed to die.” He sighed. 

“And I did not remember this feeling for many days. Perhaps weeks. But now I feel it at great intensity. I know you are a poet, thus indebted to intense emotion, so I take it you could know that feeling. But Henry, I am doubtful that anyone can understand. Especially if I tell them, or do not tell them what I have done. I want to end this, Henry. There are many catalysts I can no longer retract, many actions I have taken. The wind picks up over me and I imagine myself unable to move. I wonder how M. Krempe and M. Waldman look at me. I wonder how  _ you  _ look at me and choose to love me. I don’t understand. But perhaps it is because  _ you  _ do not understand.” 

He had tears running down his face but he spoke clearly and calmly. 

“Do you understand what I am insinuating, Henry?” 

I moved close to him. I took my handkerchief from my pocket and wiped his tears from his cheeks. Then, I took his face and kissed him on the head. In an instant, he began to sob again. I wrapped my arms around him. He heaved in my breast and I held him there, unmoving, silent. Though, I did understand him. Perhaps I could not relate, but I could understand. 

After a long moment, he pulled away, wiping his eyes and looking at me with a small smile. 

“Well, I feel as if I have burdened you.” 

“That is merely the emotion. It will make you believe things that are completely out of sync with the realities at hand.” 

“No, Henry.” He took my hand and held it tight in his. “I am burdening you because of what I am sure will occur. I know that there is danger ahead and it terrifies me. I am burdening you.” 

“You needn’t apologize.” 

“I am not apologizing. I am letting you know what I feel. This is not something that can be remedied through apologies.” 

I was stunned for a moment, but he squeezed my hand. 

“I think we ought to eat, Henry.” 


	6. we danced, but not together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Victor and Henry spend even more time together

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> more gay moments babeyyyy they are soft and sweet... for now

A foreigner’s touch yet again, tangled up in my hair as if to say  _ I know you, you are safe here,  _ and yet, I did not feel safe. I only felt the cold, uneasiness of that initial breath, that initial touch. I woke next to Victor and could not maintain my ease of mind. His eyes were fixed upon mine, more awake than they had been the last time we awoke like this. His almost-black hair swept in front of his face. I wanted to smile but I thought it was next to impossible. Nonetheless, my wants were more pronounced than my fears: I swept his hair out of his face. 

“You really should go to a barber for that.” 

“Ah well,” he smiled, taking my hand and pressing it gently against his cheek. I could feel just how warm he was, the middle point between ruggedness and tender softness that made up his gentle face. “I think you could cut the bits that are too unruly. I don’t think I need to struggle to do it myself.” 

"There are… barbers, Victor." 

"Ah yes I know, but I think I'd enjoy your touch." 

I blushed. 

Everything about him made me incredulous, and yet, I was smitten, torn between understanding him and failing. He let go of my hand. I did not pull it back, rather, I let it drift down his neck, gently landing on his chest for a moment. I could not discern whether he was the person I knew— and I had no reason to question it… nonetheless, I did, I felt uneasy, completely torn at the face of him. But I touched him anyway. I felt his breath, the ease of his motion. He was my dearest friend. My love. 

“I think we should get out of bed, darling, the sun is up.” I murmured. 

“Ah… That does seem to be a good proposal.” He smiles at me. 

The two of us climbed out of bed. He told me to get the scissors, and I did, reluctantly. I did not trust my ability to cut his hair, but surely I knew that he wouldn’t get particularly angry at me for something he goaded me into doing. I hoped, at least, that he would be smart enough as to not allow me to ruin his hair as I was about to, but of course, he allowed it. I sat him down, throwing a thick wool blanket over his shoulders. I was easily distracted by my own hands touching the soft bits of hair on the back of his neck— in an expected reply, he shivered, his body writhing a bit, followed by a light laugh. 

“Henry?” He sounded confused, but gentle and amused. “What is it you’re doing? You are meant to be cutting my hair.” 

“Yes,” I didn’t come to or snap to attention, my hand stayed on his neck. 

Instead of trying to start the task, a bubbling rose in my stomach— a small, tense excitement that I knew what to do with; I lowered my mouth to his neck, I kissed him once, twice…he laughed and I could feel the goosebumps rise on him, his head turning to the side as if to greet mine. Gentle yet strange, it was that perfect amalgam of the two that breathed into your lungs, held you there, pushed you into the light all at once, and held you on the other side as if it had not made itself a stranger to you. He put his hand on my head, fooling about in my hair for a moment as I laid my head gently on his wool-covered shoulder. 

“So are you going to cut my hair, Henry? Or are you just going to kiss me?” 

I laughed. “I would prefer to just kiss you.” Then I sighed heavily. “But I  _ suppose  _ I can cut your hair.” 

He laughed. “Of course.” 

I picked up the scissors and comb, completely unready to perform this task. A sigh slipped out of my lips and I was already swept with guilt for the atrocity I was about to perform. “Will you love me still if I make you look like a fool?” 

“Yes…” he smiled, “but try not to make me look like a fool.” 

I started to cut his hair. I was gentle, careful about it even. Throughout, my hands started to worry themselves with accuracy that I could not fathom achieving with the skills of my mind. I snipped, slipping bunches of overgrown hair into the comb and cutting off the extraneous ends. He was, surprisingly, very uncooperative. With all my best efforts, his head would shift a bit or slide out of the way, and it made it very difficult for me to make a clear cut or to make sure everything was even. 

“Victor, please stay still.” I pleaded. 

“I am not staying still?” I could not tell if he was taunting me or not. 

“No. And if you are joking, it is your hair at stake, not mine.” 

The only small benefit of this was my freedom to hold his head in my hand; he was strange and gentle, like his body was simply mutable at the touch. Finally, I finished, thinking my work was quite poor, but not poor enough to spawn shame or discomfort in his own appearance. Of course, the closest thing to dislike Victor could spawn in me with his appearance would require him to be ill, and he was well. There was no form he could take that would make me stop loving him. I put down the scissors and wiped them off with a towel to get rid of the stray strands of hair. I handed Victor a mirror. 

He laughed. “This is actually only  _ slightly  _ terrible.” 

I whipped the wool blanket off of him. “Well it would have been better if you stayed still.” 

“It would have been even better if you knew what you were doing.” He said it slyly, certainly in jest. 

He stood up and looked at me. He didn’t look atrocious, but in truth, I was the worst judge. I walked up to him, a bit annoyed. “You look good, so leave me be, Victor.” 

“Of course  _ you  _ would say I look good. You love me, I don’t think you have a clear idea of what that means.” 

I shoved him playfully. “But I can at least tell you when I think you look good, that must mean something.” 

“Mmmm…” He approached me. “I don’t think so.” 

Then he grabbed me by the waist and kissed me and in an instant I was flushed, feeling his body close to mine yet again. I could not tell who this man was, but I loved him. And if I were to look at myself, I don’t think I’d be able to tell who I was either. Between knowing myself and knowing Victor, the winds picked up, the grass got swept into the air like snow— breathing was more difficult, knowing the hand from the grass became next to impossible. But it all felt good, and warm; it didn’t slice my skin with blades of grass, it simply caressed me. A storm caressed me, a stranger, and held me there like a door blocked by snow. Just how long would it take before it was no longer gentle, before it was no longer warm and caressing. I wondered but did not feel it. I wondered but did not think. 

Victor let his lips leave mine. “I have somewhere I think we should go.” 

I smiled, still swept up in his touch, his forearm still around my waist. “Where, Victor?” 

“Well,” he seemed a bit nervous in saying this, finally letting go of me then picking up the chair he previously sat in and putting it back under the table. “There’s a ball I would like to bring you to.” 

I stopped and stared at him for a moment. “You do understand what that entails?” 

“Yes, Henry… I do. I understand. It’s just… I don’t want to go alone— I don’t have anyone to go with and” 

I interrupted him, a bit disconcerted. “So you want me to come as your date?” 

“Well, we can’t do that  _ officially. _ ” 

“Of course not. So what is the point?” 

“I want you to be there.” 

“Yes but  _ why,  _ Victor. We put ourselves at—” 

“Henry, please. I know it sounds like this is more risky than its worth, but I promise you, it will be a good chance for you to get to meet women… you know we can’t do this forever, it’s simply impossible. We’ll have to go our own ways and make our families and…” 

“God, Victor.” 

“It is just the truth.” He was firmer now. 

“The truth that we needn’t face for some time, let us have this… Please. Let us have just this.” 

“It isn’t about me, Henry. It is about you, your life. My life is already to the wind, bound by a chain to hell. There is no chance that you will live with me, that this can go on forever. I will simply be forced to do something eventually about what I have done.” 

“And what is it you have done?” 

“I have…” He seemed to take a moment to think. “I have hurt someone I love dearly. I thought I may have killed them but I left the scene before I could see the damages. I live in guilt, Henry.” 

“And who was it?” Incredulity stained my voice; I did not believe him, not after what I had learned, but I  _ wanted  _ to believe him. I wanted to trust him through and through and believe that he was not the person I thought he was. It cemented this wound of a fact: I do not know Victor Frankenstein. I do not know him at all. 

His face shifted but he did not tell me anything certain. “I do not wish to speak their name. I am afraid you might… you might hate me.” 

“I will not.” I knew he was lying. I knew it was bullshit. “But I will not ask you anymore right now.” 

He seemed to lighten when I said this, as if he had dodged a bullet. 

I sighed. “So my love has blood on his hands. If this is the case, how do you explain your reaction to the—” 

“Oh, that was nothing. Genuinely. Just an urban legend I thought I had seen once. Just a strange thing.” 

I did not believe him for a moment. “I understand, Victor.” 

However, I did have something in me that pushed me quickly towards trying to empathize with his position, towards trying to believe him entirely. I did love him, and I did want to live with him. I just knew, if this were to be the case, there would be no way for this to work. I supposed, then, that I would be forced to work with my father, to marry the woman he set out for me. I would be alone in the world; a dysfunctional man who does not follow the right path for a man. I was his broken boy, his failed son… my father would be so ashamed if he knew. All that will be left is shame. All that will be left is the memory of something breaking. 

⟷

I explained to Victor that I did not bring any formal clothing, our daily wear was all I had packed, not assuming Victor would be dragging me along for this outing, or that this outing would be occurring at all. So Victor, with his eyes a bit sullen and his face hung down, instructed (and I do say  _ instructed  _ thanks to the way his voice formed a much deeper, sharper command than I had noticed prior) me to come with him to the tailors. I did not ask him any questions, in fact, I was somewhat comfortable with his commands, as if he was trying to be kind to me but didn’t quite know how. A strange man. A very strange man. For those days I tried not to think of him as the liar he was, and instead, thought of the morgue where Victor was implicated, the laboratory that M. Krempe would not let me see, the strange actions surrounding the vision of the beast. I did not believe anything Victor told me anymore, I only firmly believed myself. 

Victor got ready in his bedroom and I sat on a stool, already prepared to leave myself, watching him button the tortoiseshell buttons on his shirt with his nimble fingers. I asked him plainly; 

“Victor? Are you telling me the truth?” 

He turned to me, playfully. “About what? And why do you doubt me? You know I am trustworthy.” 

“Are you?” I snapped, attempting to sound curious. 

There. Right there. I realized I was angry. I realized there was nothing left for Victor to give me but disappointment. The heat in my throat was unmistakable; I wanted to take something from him. Perhaps it was his confidence, his surety, his knowledge that he was correct in  _ lying  _ to me. I wanted it in my hands, like a pulpy piece of flesh from the neck, I wanted to hold it there and let him know he  _ should not lie to me.  _ But of course. I am not that kind of man. I am just a man who is in love with another man, a man with his leg crossed with another’s by way of shackles. There was no reason for me to believe that he would listen to me if I told him what I knew, and perhaps there was no danger in it. But I was afraid of it nonetheless; of ruining what little heaven we had here, of ruining the wind that fell on our faces through the window, of ruining breath, ease, the commonality of love. I felt my hands get clammy, my face dampened with a bit of discomfort. 

“Why wouldn’t I be, Henry?” He carried on with that small, obnoxious smirk, that lilting voice that almost always indicated falsehood. I knew this from when we were children. 

“Victor. I have heard you lie before.” 

“Yes you have, and I am not lying now.” He got stern, as if he was preparing to lash out against me. Fear cut me off before I could speak again. I did not want him to be angry; I loved him.  _ What a fool.  _

“I’m sorry. I just can’t believe what you told me before.” 

“Why not?” 

“Because of the evidence. You were paranoid, you said you  _ created  _ something while in your fever. You said you affronted nature. I don’t believe that this is the words of a man who committed an accidental murder. The facts do not line up.” 

“Oh Henry. You are making these things up. You know that I was unwell. I don’t believe I said any of these things. How am  _ I  _ supposed to believe  _ you  _ when I know that you as well were afflicted by fever and delirium for many of those weeks? How am I meant to trust your judgement?” 

“My judgement?” I wanted to scream, but the thought of him being untrustworthy wilted. I always wanted to trust him. I always wanted to let him be right, even at my own dismay. 

“Yes, your judgement. You weren’t of a clear head. Are you of a clear head now? You have been acting notably strange, you have been shuffling about, looking angry.” 

I didn’t want to dispute him, perhaps I was. Perhaps there was something about me right now that did have some terrible malfunction; perhaps I was mad…

“I am not… I am of a clear head.” I wobbled with doubt. 

“I don’t think you are, I mean, look at you, you’re getting so angry.” He seemed to be genuinely concerned, but anyone with an outsider’s view would have noticed the simple coldness in his voice that I missed, they would have noted the catty snideness that lifted his syllables. 

“I am not angry… I just don't know what to believe.” 

“Well it’s easy. You can believe me. It is that simple. You needn’t inquire about whether I am lying, because I am telling you the truth. I am always telling you the truth. I have the best things in mind for you. Perhaps…” He looked at his watch. “Perhaps we should wait a few hours before we go to the tailor. It is not an issue.” 

“O-okay.” I murmured. 

I did not believe myself anymore. My breath felt uneasy and the thing in my chest did not feel like a heart but a horse, the blood in my veins felt like venom more than blood. I wanted to perish. But he came close to me, he ran his hand across my somewhat sweaty face. 

“Let’s lie down.” He suggested. 

I nodded. He led me to the bed and we laid there together. He held me but I stared at the wall for the whole duration. My body felt tight in his arms. A stranger was holding me captive: my head did not know it, my heart did not know it, but my body knew it. It was coldly, entirely too aware of this feeling. I had felt it before with my father. And I felt it now with Victor. But… I loved him. I loved him so this must be how it is meant to feel. It is uncharted territory, anyways, men loving each other. Perhaps when the urge of conquest misfires, all we have left is taking each other captive. This might be love. This might be love. 

We eventually did leave for the tailor. It was a strange affair. Victor took on a very uninterested position with me, looking at me, and referring to me as a coworker. The way we moved about the world was in essence an act of deception. The only place we were free to love each other was in the confines of the apartment or simply within the hidden environs of certain parts of the city. Though perhaps this should have bothered me, I knew the position we were in; I knew what would happen if word were to spread— it was dangerous. I was uncontented with it, but I was not angry. I loved him… yes, I loved him… we would do what we needed to do to survive. I dressed myself and even that felt strangely lonely to not have Victor’s eyes poring over my body, though perhaps it was more strange to have him watch… however, it seemed that everything began to snap with that awkwardness that was not there prior. I wished to return home— so I could get dressed and Victor could look me up and down and be proud of the man he loves. 

When we left, the tailor noticeably chuckled, then spoke off to the side to his assistant. I could sense them— my instinct was to burst with unbecoming rage, to insist that it is good for us to be together like this, that it is not at all strange, but I knew that this would be taken as an admission, and lord knows what could happen if we  _ admitted  _ it. Anyone with half a brain and eyes to watch could tell that Victor and I were consorting. It was no secret. It was simply the way our relationship worked. When we finally made it back to the apartment, I hugged him tightly. His arms hung limp around me for a moment (perhaps in shock?) until he quietly lifted them, cautiously around my waist, then lifting his hands up to my back. He was so warm now… the contrast stunned me from the times when his body was frozen or so ill it carried only chills. He stepped back a bit, setting down the parcel with our clothes for the ball, and simply smiled at me. Gently, he pressed his hand to my face, lowering his fingers beneath my chin, then lifted it. 

“We must be confident if we want to survive, Henry. If we want to live a life where we are not beholden to the things that people tell us we must be.” 

“This is strange coming from you. What has come over you?” 

Something shifted, Victor’s eyes fell from their confident state and sunk to the floor. “I don’t know… I… we should…” He paused. “Let’s go try on our clothes.” 

⟷

I genuinely haven’t a clue how to describe the sheer discomfort of this ball. I stood at the door to the venue in my fine suit, frills puffed from my collar, my suit jacket pressed to the point of stiffness— I was uncomfortable. Not necessarily because of the clothes, but more because of my inability to, well, breathe. The women entered from a different door stinking of perfumes putrid enough to disrupt my entire thinking process, nearly choke me to death, and leave me without a single want to stick around any longer. Victor was by my side and, while we would enter together and be free to speak solely to each other, there was an expectation that we would dance with women. That we would be men, or whatever the fuck the people expected of us. I looked to him frequently. 

“Victor, do you still want to be here?” I asked. 

He would nod passively, looking happy even though his eyes seemed weak and beleaguered. I only asked of him— I did not think of myself now. I could not be bothered to consider the conditions I was under. I simply wanted to be happy in any way I could. It was all I could plead for. 

It was, however, quite a beautiful venue. The ceilings were terribly ornate, carefully crafted with spirals and delicate visages of angels. It was not a church, no, simply some rich man’s pleasure palace. We did not know him— or at least  _ I _ did not know him, perhaps Victor did, hence the invitation— but he was generous with meals, with drinks, with interesting, lilting waltz music. When we entered, Victor and I stayed close by. He seemed noticeably uncomfortable with this, his eyes constantly shifting away from mine— fingers fiddling, his foot tapping. I wondered just how long it would be until he told me, bluntly,  _ stop this, go dance with someone.  _ But he didn’t— at least, not for some time. He smiled at me gently for a moment, raising his hand barely halfway before realizing we were indeed in public and that there was no way he could get away with his tenderness in this scenario. Frustration flushed his face. 

“I know you don’t want to…” he murmured, knocking back a third glass of alcohol. 

I swirled my glass. It was a foolish hope, yes, but I wanted to think that Victor would let us simply sit here and enjoy each other’s company. Of course, this was never  _ truly  _ an option. It was just a possibility that we could entertain like one entertains the pretending of a child. I sighed as he looked away from me, somewhat shyly, searching the ground for something that could offer him any sort of answer or respite. I wasn’t angry, or at least, I was trying not to be— the perfume, the discomfort, all of it started to grate at my nerves. I wanted to leave. Or, I wanted to do something, to dance. However, and of course, I only wanted to dance with Victor. I only wanted him in my arms. But we must learn the things we can and cannot do, lest their potentiality begin to cut at our veins and steal away whatever lifeblood we have. 

“I know you don’t want to dance with a woman, but there is a woman there— she is quite beautiful. She is kind, I have seen her around, though I do not know her name. And now, she comes closer.” 

I shook my head in resistance, then looked down pensively, slowly gazing back upon Victor with tired eyes. “Would it make you happy?” 

He nodded. 

I was a bit tipsy. I nodded with a tiny, scandalous smile curling on my lips. _I’d show him._ I thought. 

Frankly, I do not remember what the woman looked like. I do not think it matters much— he told me she was beautiful, I will take him at his word. I did not despise her and surely she was a good person with her own intricacies and intrigue, but I didn’t care for that right now. I wanted to impress Victor. I wanted to make him realize I could do what he asked. Had I been sober, I would have quickly realized that what he asked was ultimately for me to leave him, to move on to some other person, specifically a woman, and find my way in the world without him. And for what? Because of some  _ crime?  _ It offended me that he thought I would simply leave, that I would disappear like a fickle mistress. 

Despite this disruption in my thoughts, I moved quick; I swept her up in my grasp, tipping and tapping with the music— I knew my formations, my steps, my motions. It was an easy thing to do; to move with her. It felt natural. It wasn’t, but it did  _ feel  _ it. Perhaps I could do it; my body was quite lithe, moving swiftly and easily as I let her body fall into my steps. She smiled bright. I couldn’t tell if she was pretty as time disallowed my eyes to gaze upon her for longer than a splitting moment. In the end, it felt good, somehow. In the end, it felt as if I had not done something terrible, that I had not made a mistake— but I was still… angry at Victor for all of this, though I did not wish to express that to him. I wanted to kiss him— I wanted to hold him. I didn’t want to writhe in unruliness because of him. 

By the end of the night, the two of us disappeared into the city. 

“Hmm…” Victor murmured, “I presume,” he threw his arm around my shoulder. “It would be best if we got a bit  _ more  _ drunk.” 

I laughed gently, feeling his warm arm around me. A smile dug its way into my face. Turning to him, I gazed upon him with gentleness. He smiled back at me. I wonder often about the extent of his kindness, whether it will shift on me at a moment’s notice. 

For some time, we walked together. Us, with our shifty steps, our uneasy motions and our loving glances— tell the world what we’ve done here, I do not care. We did drink until stupor. We did stumble back to his apartment. I don’t recall what happened next. But I am filled with joy anyway. I am alive for once.

When I woke, he was kissing my cheek. I touched his face. We were both dressed in only our skin— our bodies flush, slightly sweaty, the blanket replaced with a single bare sheet. It is like being the soil, packed with other soil, packed with things like you— and through that kinship, you grow to love them. It is a gentleness, our time together. I did not wonder how long it would last. I was happy. I was filled with joy. He kissed— soon enough, I kissed back. He laughed, saying nothing. 

I laid my head on his chest and felt him breathe. Then he lurched out of bed and vomited into a bucket already on the side of the bed. Laughter struck me so fast. With a wet cloth, he wiped his face. 

“Sorry, love.” He murmured. “I feel ill.” 

“Hah,” I laughed softly. 

“What?” He whined, exasperatedly. 

“Oh nothing,” I refused to touch his face, but I pressed my hand against his chest, “I love you.” 

He smiled, then nodded. 


	7. intermittent journey

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Victor and Henry journey through the environs of Ingolstadt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ayo so i definitely did not update this fic for like. a long time. it be like that. life is hard.

Victor lurched up from the bed three hours after the two of us woke from our slumber. Those three tender hours, spent with the two of us passing back idle conversation, talking about things that ultimately had no effect or impact on the lives we led, but felt incredibly important then, surmised all of the pains and joys I’d felt in these past months. I loved it. I loved him. 

He stood, his legs vaguely wobbling as he extended a hand to me— through no choice but desperation, I instinctively snatched his hand. He guided me through uneven, unmeasured steps, his hands fixed themselves on my hips. The two of us danced, beholding each other nearly completely bare, his body against mine, mine against his. He was so gentle, so soft. He was a good man, I convinced myself. He couldn’t lie to me, I insisted. He placed kisses up and down my face and neck, his hands swiftly becoming more meandering, and yes, this struck me, but it only struck joy into me like a church bell. I rang in rejoice. I rang with him and we made music together as we danced to nothing. Soon, I kissed him, then him me— we pulled each other into the bed and enjoyed each other’s company. For all things gentle and good, it was this that was the warmest of all. I think the winter is soon over, I think we are no longer strangers. But perhaps I am a fool. Perhaps my mind is broken and drunk on love. I may know nothing. I may be too much of a fool to discern. 

⟷

We left for the mountains a few nights after our moment together— we spent it carefully, moving with ease and an abundance of caution. It was, most importantly, how I lied to myself that pushed me through this time; the way I made sense of the way that Victor was uncaring of me; how he would push ahead long after my legs had cramped and my body had fell ill— as if there were some sort of destination lying long in the distance, waiting for us. There never was; at least, that I was aware of. It was merely the two of us; we were meant to be  _ sight seeing.  _ I told Victor this over and over. 

“It isn’t that  _ severe,  _ Victor!’ I cried from behind him. “Let me rest.” 

He scoffed at me, looking back for a moment then looking ahead with not an inkling of patience.

By the time we made it to our first campsite and sat together, my body was far too tired to move, and he was still spry and unshaken. I cannot describe the look in his eyes; how heated it was, torn from the light of knowing into the wily darks of the wants of man— I could see every instance of his infernality in it. He was not a kind man, this look told me. He was a cruel man, made of sharp edges and terrible designs. He was meant to destroy, he was meant to kill. But surely I was wrong. Truly, I am not meant to be trusted. I am meant to be ignored, meant to be looked away from as the wind picks up. I am not meant to be knowledgeable like Victor— rather, I am meant to be his foil, the small of his back, the thing which works to support him. Right? Please, Lord, tell me if I am correct. 

I looked out over the starry sky, ignoring Victor, and I thought of God. He never spoke. He was beautiful, perhaps, because he did not speak. My God seemed to be less of the divine and more a man; more Victor Frankenstein standing before me— his face, his bones, his muscle, his softness… He was an anomaly amongst men. I loved him. Even now, as his seeming insanity twisted deeper and deeper into me. He repeatedly snapped his fingers, pacing back and forth after we set up the campsite— he stood for a moment, entirely distracted, then started again. I don’t know what could have caused this besides derangement of mind. Besides a mistake I must’ve made in not keeping him well enough to avoid it. I laid in the tent, shaking from cold, no matter how wrapped up I was. Since the winter, I had lost a significant amount of weight. It hadn’t shown until the nighttime winds started whipping through, cutting through what little body fat I did have. 

“Victor…” I called to him, poking my head out of the tent. 

He paced still, hitting his hand against his thigh. 

“Please come to bed.” I pleaded. 

He turned to me, a stunning amount of venom latent in his eyes— and even more so in his speech: “There is yet more work to be done— I must be rid of this burden.” 

“What are you speaking of?” 

“I don’t…” His face seemed to lighten. “I am sorry, Henry.” He held his hand to his face. “I have gotten carried away.” 

Victor crawled into our tent and we laid together. Occasionally, his hand would still strike his leg, but he grew more still as we spoke. 

I looked him in the eyes— the wildness had passed. He looked at me with some sort of tense knowledge in him. He smiled softly. 

“When I work, Henry…” He trailed off. “I become someone else. My labors consume me completely. That was the problem with my schooling. I often became unable to focus on or complete any other task— my flesh and body felt like weak offshoots of the wants of my mind— I was enslaved by them. There was no way for me to avoid this condition— no matter how much I tried.” He snapped his fingers. “When the process of alchemy arrived at my feet I pursued it— I loved it. It was all I cared about. Let it be known, I was correct, but it needn’t matter anymore— because…” He trailed off again. 

I observed him closely. He exhibited the motions of someone afflicted with restlessness, but the rest of his body seemed efficiently calm. He stared into my eyes. He reached a hand out, touching the side of my face— closing his eyes, then bringing me closer. No matter how strange all of the times we kissed felt— each one had its own certain beauty, like something perfectly constructed from a small light of God, pulled from nowhere until eventually rectified in man. The divine, I’ve learned, works best when in the hands of man. The divine, of course, resists this— but we must learn how to harness it, to advance ourselves, to bring ourselves joy. 

His lips touched mine— and divinity was silently everywhere. 

He let go, his hand still soft on my face, and he pulled me to bed. He held me in his arms with a tangible softness. He held me as if he was holding all of the world— as if he was steward and protector; the perfect guardian of a perfect world. 

⟷

It was not until the fifth day of our journey that something went wrong. All of the days before this one were perfect— the environs of Ingolstadt moving gently across my eyes, under my feet. There was no reason to believe it would be disrupted, but of course, we haven’t the luxury of good days forever. We haven’t the luxury of love as a consistent joy. 

We stood in the valley of a mountain, walking, exchanging pointless information about ourselves as the wind picked up and hummed through the ravine. The more I listened to Victor talk, the more I loved him. Then, from nowhere, the rain picked up. There was no call for it— the sky had been clear much of the day prior besides a few stray clouds. Then, thunder cracked the sky. The wind abated, softening the air. We stood still, waiting for something— we did not know what. I looked at Victor. His eyes were steady, unmoving, fixed on mine. 

He started to walk ahead of me as I took out the umbrella we packed, moving swiftly to cover myself, yet failing to cover Victor because of his position further ahead than me. He called out to me and I followed him, trying to keep pace with his running. We retreated to a stray cave, the rain soaking him yet only sprinkling me. He stared outside of the cave for the entire time I had seated myself deeper in. He seemed anxious— his body clearly tense in his shoulders, and his fists balled up. He shouted spontaneously, crying out; 

_ “Daemon!”  _

He turned to me, his eyes enraptured with frenzy. “We must go back to Ingolstadt— where you will be safe. We must go back or else you will be in terrible, terrible danger. And I cannot have you in terrible danger. I simply love you too much. This trip— it was an error in judgement. Nay, we are not permitted to travel like this. It is not safe.” He grabbed me by the arm. “Let us go. We’re heading back.” 

I trusted Victor implicitly; my body in debt to his body, my mind in debt to his mind. I trusted him because I felt I had no other choice. Because I felt there was a need— a perfect necessity there. We went back to Ingolstadt in haste. The sights were not as beautiful on the way back as they were on the way there, utterly marred by Victor’s unseemly fixation on this thing he saw, on the terror he felt as the sky went dark. Every day, it was raining. The dark of the world had landed firmly upon the feet of the living. 

We returned to Ingolstadt on the sixth day of our return. 

Once we returned, Victor began acting like himself again. We made it to his apartment, sitting silently in his room, sharing each other. We spoke calmly of what this could have been, what this want was. He never seemed confident in his answers— but not because of some sort of deficiency in confidence, nay, rather, because he knew something he was not letting on. 

I remembered his teachers, the things they had told me. The things they had said he had done. I realized something. I had not been out of my mind— I had not been mad. Victor has done something terrible. But I did not ask him what. My own fear berated my sense; I did not want to intrude upon the things he wants, the things he feels he must do. I let him do as he wanted. I let him. 

Victor laid a hand on my thigh as we sat on the couch; “I miss Geneva, Henry.” His eyes lit with exquisite longing, a sort of longing that prompted its own sort of wanting. “I feel as though… there will be a problem if I do not return— and yet, something prohibits me from returning. I wish not to pretend that I do not know what it is— it is clear. It is you.” 

I stared at him, silently. “Hm?” 

“I do not want to leave you, ever. I never want to leave.” 

I placed my hand on his thigh as well. “There’s no reason for you to word for me— I am perfectly independent.” 

He shook his head. “It is not about you. It is about  _ me.”  _ He laid his head on my shoulder, removing his hand from my thigh. “I feel as if I need to be around you, even though I know it isn’t safe, even though I know there is no real reason for me to keep staying near you outside of love. I am a being of my wants. Even in my labors I move by the wants of my mind— how they move gently and with firmness. It hurts me to think of leaving you. Everything has become perfectly routine and ritualistic— waking with you, sleeping with you, eating with you. It is a phenomenal arrangement. I do not want it to change.” 

“You will be fine, my love.” 

“Will I? Without you I do not think I have much besides my mind— and this alone terrifies me more than anything.” 

“I do not know what to say.” I felt my uneasiness rise— I realized the issue I faced. I realized, finally, what Victor had been trying to tell me. There was no way for this to continue. 

“You don’t have to say anything. Just know I love you.” 

Soon, I left to retrieve mail. I sat at Victor’s desk and rifled through the messages. Many were for him, but one in particular was explicitly addressed towards me. It was from my father.

He called me back to him— he explained that there was something wrong with his health, that he needed me to return. I believed him, of course. I was ready to run back to him without hesitation. I did not want to say goodbye to Victor. I didn’t want to leave him. But ultimately, this message simply filled me with rage. It sent my spine cold— with every inkling of anger gathering in my fists. He was  _ ill?  _ He was a man who never understood his own limits, of course he was ill. I knew I had to go back. I was ready to— but there was no chance I did not ascribe my father’s ailment to him, that I did not expect all of this to have been  _ his  _ fault. 

I laid my hands down, palms facing up— I didn’t trust any of this. I wanted it to stop. 

I looked through Victor’s letters. One from M. Krempe. He wrote of the work Victor did in an interrogative tone— asking if Victor knew the things he had done in that laboratory were  _ illegal.  _ Illegal!? I stared at the letter in silence. I inhaled slowly. Victor would not see this letter, I resolved. He would not be bothered with its contents. 


End file.
